Missing Moments
by TheSingingGirl
Summary: So much happened from the moment Rosalie picked up the phone to when Jacob came to visit. A series of missing moments to tell you the story between books 1 and 2 of Breaking Dawn.
1. Pleading

The Phone Call

AN: This is section one of my Missing Moments series. It follows directly on from the end of Book 1 in Breaking Dawn. I've redone this chapter after I got an INCREDIBLY useful review.

Disclaimer: Fortunately, I do not own Twilight or any of the characters. Stephenie Meyer does, and she writes far better than me! Text in bold is taken directly from Breaking Dawn.

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BPOV

**I flipped my husband's phone open and scrolled through the preprogrammed numbers. I was glad he had the sound turned off, afraid that he would catch me. Would he be at the boat now? Or back already? Would he hear me from the kitchen if I whispered?**

**I found the number I wanted, one I had never called before in my life. I pressed the "send" button and crossed my fingers.**

While the ringtone droned interminably on, I couldn't stop my mind replaying Edward's words.

_**"We're going to get that thing out before it can hurt any part of you."**_

**_"... get that thing out..."_**

**_"... that thing..."_**

I wanted to scream in fear, and anger, to tell him that 'that thing' was our child, to tell him that it was my child, to tell him that he was wrong.

When I had first worked it out, I had been too numb to consider what it meant that I was pregnant with a baby of unknown species. I hadn't considered what to do at all, I hadn't got my head round the fact that I was pregnant. Pregnant! At eighteen! With the child of a vampire!

And then it had nudged me.

Suddenly, everything was clear. Yes, I was pregnant, and yes, it was Edward's child, and most of all, it was my baby. My baby. The feeling that coursed through me then was impossible to describe. The closest comparison I had was that it felt like falling in love all over again. For the third time in my life, I was in love, and I knew that I would always love my baby. The dreams made sense now; I felt the same protective urge to save the child I already loved. I could only be thankful that, unlike in my dreams, there was no danger.

I hadn't even considered abortion.

I wasn't one of those pro-life activists or whatever. I always thought abortion was a personal choice, and who was I to say what was right for someone else? Surely in some cases it was better for the child in question not to be brought into a life where it wouldn't be loved or where there wasn't enough money to provide it with the life it deserved. So all in all, I was pretty neutral on the subject, or I had been until this moment.

I didn't understand now how Edward could do that! How could he possibly even consider... our child... I shuddered in absolute horror. He hadn't even asked me what I'd thought. Maybe I would have understood if he'd reasoned it out with me, and I knew he was worried about my safety, but he had simply assumed I wanted to do this. Assumed I wanted to abort his child. What kind of a person did he think I was? What kind of a person was he? A small gasp escaped me at the traitorous thoughts running through my mind, before the ring tone suddenly cut off. I jumped, and pressed the phone even closer to my ear to block out the noise.

"**Hello?" the voice like golden wind chimes answered.**

"**Rosalie?" I whispered. "It's Bella. Please. You have to help me." **

She cut me off before I could explain further, and my sister-in-law's voice turned icy. "Oh? And what do I have to help you with? After everything I said to you, you still make the wrong decision Bella! Will you ever make the right decision?"

It was the most passion I had ever heard from Rosalie. More emotion even than when she'd told me her horrific story, and I realised what she must think of me. She had obviously heard the news of my unexpected pregnancy, and assumed I was to blame for Edward's horrific decision. A pang of guilt hit me, even though I had had nothing to do with it.

"Wait, Rosalie!" I whispered urgently, desperately. "That wasn't my decision! It's Edward who wants to…" I choked on the word "abort… our baby. I need your help to stop him!"

That silenced her, and I was forced to wait, growing ever tenser. How long would it take Edward to get back? When she finally spoke, Rosalie's voice was quiet, hesitant, and yet full of emotion, such a contrast to her usual arrogant tone. "I… oh, Bella, of course I'll help you. I'll stop them," she added, and her voice was fierce now.

I felt an overwhelming surge of relief and my hand dropped to my stomach to caress my bump. I barely realised I was doing it, it felt so natural. So right. "Thank you so much, Rosalie. You can't know how much this means to me." The tears streamed thickly down my face and I had to fight to keep my voice coherent. I fair near dissolved in gratitude; there was still a chance for my baby.

"I'll have to disagree with you there," she said. "I know exactly what this means. If I can't be a mother, thank you for letting me be an aunt. In fact, you know what, Bella? Even though I know you'll still want to be changed after this, even though I'm insanely jealous of you, I'm glad you're my sister."

It was the closest Rosalie had ever come to saying she liked me. I felt like I would have burst into tears if they hadn't already been blinding me.

"Thank you," I whispered. Struggling to pull myself together, I thought I heard a noise from the boat. It was a mark of Edward's stress that I could hear anything at all; usually he moved in silence. "I have to go, Edward-"

"I'll be at the airport," Rosalie promised. "We'll get through this, Bella."

I heard the click of the phone as she hung up, and I hurried to place Edward's cell exactly where it had been on the counter. As I did so, I marvelled at how a phone call that had lasted less than three minutes had changed everything. It was unbelievable how quickly Rosalie and I had become a team. Like Edward and Seth, forming an unusual alliance, fighting a common enemy. It broke my heart that the enemy was the man I had previously thought was perfect, the man I had married only two weeks ago. The man who now walked into the kitchen and pulled me into his arms, brushing away my tears with cool fingers.

"Are you ready to go?" Edward murmured.

Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded against his stone-hard chest, his silent heart a constant reminder of his heartlessness. I had never thought of Edward like that before, not even when he left me. I had forgiven him then without question because I loved him beyond all reason. Now, however, I had someone else I loved just the same, more than I had ever loved Jacob, no matter what either of them thought. I had forgiven Edward for wanting to kill Jacob, and I had forgiven Jacob for wanting to kill Edward, but I didn't know if I could forgive Edward for wanting to kill our baby. It scared me, the possibility that I might not forgive him. We had survived so much together, from battles and death attempts to the more human tests like separation and marriage. Would this, what was supposed to be the final mark of how much we belonged together, finally pull us apart?

No. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't lose either of them, my husband or my baby. But the two of them were impossible to reconcile.

Hastily, I pulled away and headed straight for the door, scared to show him my face in case he saw in my eyes what I was agonizing over. Yet again, I fervently thanked God for my silent thoughts as I considered the prospect of hiding this - my plan to save our baby and my horror at his early hatred towards our baby - from him for an entire day.

_It'll be alright_, I thought to my little nudger. _Auntie Rosalie and me will save you. I love you._

I left my honeymoon island without a backwards glance.

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Next chapter is the phone conversation from Rosalie's POV, the family reacted upon finding out Bella was pregnant.


	2. Fighting

The Phone Call

A/N: Rosalie's point of view begins just before Alice rings Bella, when she's just realised she's pregnant. A lot more interesting than Bella's.

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**RPOV**

I was seething, but at the same time utterly consumed with grief. I didn't see how this day could get any worse.

It had been nice without Bella and Edward for a couple of weeks. Don't get me wrong, I loved my brother, but whenever Bella was around there was trouble, and it broke the rhythm of this life that I tried so hard to like. It also infuriated me that the girl was so ready to throw away everything I wanted, everything I had nearly had, with no more thought than Alice used when tossing out a pair of last season's shoes. In herself, Bella didn't annoy me any more – I couldn't fail to appreciate how understanding and forgiving she was and above all I had to appreciate the change she'd made in Edward. However, I still couldn't bring myself to like her. I had hoped that this would change over the next decades of living with her; otherwise this non-life would truly become a living hell.

I knew now I would never like her.

This morning, it had all been relatively peaceful. We were all round the house, just generally relaxing in the lounge. Carlisle had just headed upstairs to go read some book or other (I didn't understand how he could reread a book when he had a perfect memory) when all of a sudden Alice had sat up, with a blank look on her face that we all recognised immediately. At first it wasn't cause for concern – Alice's visions were frequent and rarely foreshadowed anything too terrible (with the exception of the last couple of years with Bella, of course). So why didn't it surprise us that the first word she choked out was "Bella".

The family's reaction was both instantaneous and predictable. Esme gasped in fear and concern, and Jasper took Alice's face in his hands, ready to question her and calm her mood. Even Emmett looked up with worry. I didn't move. What did Bella mean to me?

"What do you see, Alice?" Jasper's voice was carefully calm and composed.

Alice's tone could have been more of an opposite if she tried. Horror and terror coloured her voice as she gasped out another single word.

"Nothing."

For a second, we were all utterly confused. Jasper's eyebrows furrowed, but he continued to steadily interrogate his mate.

"What do you mean, Alice? You looked for Bella…"

"And saw nothing," she finished.

A brief pause. "And Edward?"

"Still there," Alice whispered.

Even I was afraid now. We had all seen the consequences when Edward lost Bella. Heaven knows I knew more than most what that would lead to.

Before anyone had a chance to react, Alice had whipped out her cellphone and was ringing Edward's number. The tension seemed to multiply tenfold for every millisecond that he didn't pick up. We could all hear the dial tone as it droned dully on. Esme was growing frantic as we waited in silence, and Jasper had to calm her down.

After an eternity of nothingness, the phone finally stopped ringing. There was another everlasting moment of anticipation, and then a voice spoke on the end of the line.

"Hi, Alice." It was Bella. Alice was dumbstruck for a moment. So were we. Why wasn't she visible to Alice when she was so obviously alive?

"Bella?" Alice asked in blatant disbelief, mixed with relief and confusion. "Bella, are you okay?"

"Yeah." It didn't sound convincing. "Um. Is Carlisle there?"

Why did she want Carlisle? Emmett and I exchanged a confused look as Alice answered. "He is. What's the problem?"

Bella's reply reassured no one. "I'm not… one hundred percent… sure…"

"Is Edward all right? Carlisle!" Alice called. He appeared instantly, but Alice ploughed straight on with another question. "Why didn't he pick up the phone?"

"I'm not sure," Bella said again.

Alice was getting irritated. "Bella, what's going on? I just saw-" she cut herself off. Best not to tell a girl already prone to worrying too much that she had no future.

"What did you see?"

Alice didn't answer. Carlisle held his hand out for the phone.

"Here's Carlisle."

Carlisle was speaking immediately. "Bella, it's Carlisle. What's going on?"

"I… I'm a little worried about Edward." Everyone tensed. "Can vampires go into shock?"

"Has he been harmed?" Carlisle asked. No one breathed for a moment.

"No, no." We all exhaled. It would have been comical if it wasn't so serious. Esme sank back onto the sofa, relieved, until Bella spoke again. "Just taken by surprise."

I was beginning to get very annoyed. Why couldn't she just spit it out?

"I don't understand, Bella."

My sister-in-law's next words froze me all over again.

"I think… well, I think that… maybe… I might be… pregnant."

Impossible. It couldn't be. Unless she had cheated on Edward. But he would know, wouldn't he? Was it that dog's? Had Edward forgiven her?

Or was it… could it be Edward's?

No. Vampires couldn't have children. I was a testament to that. Esme and I, born to be mothers, killed to never have a child.

My view on being a vampire was closer to Edward's than Carlisle's. I didn't believe we lost our souls, since I didn't believe in souls in the first place, but I did believe it was a fate that no one should have. When I had brought Emmett to Carlisle, the guilt I had felt was unbelievable. It took years for him to convince me that he only felt gratitude. Edward's initial refusal to change Bella had only brought back that guilt. Did that mean he loved her more than I loved Emmett? I had never told him, but I knew Edward had heard my thoughts on the matter, and he knew that this was a huge part of the reason I couldn't accept Bella. I was grateful that my brother had never told Bella that.

While Carlisle spoke to Bella about her symptoms, I frantically re-evaluated everything I had ever held to be true about vampires and children. I had never questioned that vampires were, without exception, infertile. Yet the dates of Bella's menstrual cycle suggested it had to be Edward's child. So it seemed that it was only the women who were unable to bear children. No menstrual cycle, no hormones, no change. Ever. But men… when they were frozen, most likely everything froze with them. You could almost compare them to a sperm bank. Except we knew that every bodily liquid was replaced by venom, and presumably that included semen. What effect would that have? Would that alter the baby's development? Judging by Bella's accelerated pregnancy, it did.

Even while my mind was rationalising the science behind this impossible situation, my emotions were going wild as they had not done since I was a newborn. First, the injustice of it struck at my heart like a flaming sword. Vampire women, with all their maternal instincts remaining intact were infertile while men were not. Next, jealousy. Bella had always had what I wanted, and now she had this too! The anger followed on from the jealousy. It simply wasn't fair. Bella didn't deserve this. Then, though, I began to wonder how it would feel when the child was born.

The child. My niece or nephew. Family. Even though it wouldn't be my child, it would be living in my house, with my family. With me. In a sense, I would finally have a child.

Suddenly, I felt a rush of warmth, joy, happiness, overwhelming ecstasy, and I was staggered to find that this was the strongest emotion of all. I was flying, until my cursedly perfect hearing dragged me firmly back down to earth, and through to hell.

Carlisle was speaking to Edward now. "… I'm sorry, Edward, but I didn't know to warn you. Even the Volturi have never experienced this, I think. I'm afraid I don't know anything about how the foetus will develop. I don't know what it will be or even if it will survive, though the accelerated pregnancy suggests that it will be strong enough."

"And Bella?" Edward asked, his tone eerily subdued.

"I'm sorry, son, I don't know whether she could make it either. It's a huge risk, allowing the pregnancy to develop any further. If the foetus is too strong for her, she could die. I suggest you terminate the pregnancy as soon as possible."

Terminate? Was Carlisle seriously suggesting that the baby be aborted? Murdered? No. They couldn't.

But they could.

Carlisle always said that he had never taken a human life, when asked, but now I wondered if that was true. How many children had he killed before they could be allowed to live? How many babies had died at his hands over his centuries of work? And how easily would he slaughter his own grandchild?

Barely a second had passed as I thought this through. Then I heard Edward say, "Yes. Yes I will."

He had agreed to murder his own son or daughter. That was one of the rare times that I agreed with Edward. Not over the abortion, but a belief he had long held to be truth, something I had always fervently disagreed with until this moment.

He was a monster.

Carlisle put the phone down, and breathed a sigh of relief. He was about to head up to his study, presumably to prepare the sacrificial room, but I stood abruptly.

"You're a murderer."

Carlisle's face twisted in pain, but I didn't let him answer. "This child will be unique! The only one of its kind! The only possibility any of us will ever have to introduce a new generation! Our niece or nephew, your grandchild Carlisle! An innocent child! And you're going to kill it! I don't care what you say about preserving human life, this is murder!"

I was shaking with rage. Esme made to get up and put a hand on my arm, but I wheeled and turned on her.

"Esme, you've made do with us for all these years! Are you going to take this away from your children? How can you condone this? Don't you dare, Jasper!" I added, snapping at my brother who backed away with his hands up. The wall of calm which had been threatening to smother me vanished.

Esme looked almost scared at my volatility. "Rosalie, darling, normally I wouldn't. But this isn't our choice to make. It's Edward's and Bella's, Rose." Her tone was soft and beseeching.

I snatched at her words, scrambling for more points. "Bella's choice? And has anyone asked her what she thinks about murdering her child?" I carried on before Carlisle could interrupt. "You didn't ask her that. And we all heard what Edward said: 'Yes, **I **will.' He hasn't asked Bella about this!"

Alice was the next to join the fight against me. "Rose, you know Bella's never wanted to be a mother. If this threatens to take her away from Edward, she'll choose him." I could see that I was fighting a losing battle. Alice continued, "She would never hurt him. If Carlisle is right and this could kill her, she knows it would kill him in the same stroke, and Bella would never do that."

I could hear the double meaning behind her words; whether it was intentional or not, I didn't know. She was asking me if I cared that it would kill them both. But I was desperate, and I knew that if it got me a child I would do anything.

Emmett moved from behind me to put an arm round my shoulders. I looked at him, the man I loved with the face that reminded me of my best friend's baby, and I asked myself: if I were in Bella's position, would I still keep the baby? Even if I knew I could die? Even if I knew it would hurt Emmett? Even if it could kill him?

I didn't even have to decide. Of course I would.

"You don't understand, Alice," I said, and my voice was quieter now. "You don't know what it's like to have that potential, and then to have it snatched away from you."

It was a harsh blow, to bring up Alice's painful and forgotten past, but she didn't quail. "Maybe I don't," she replied calmly. "But I do know Bella."

I looked from one face to another, each pair of golden eyes set firmly against me. I stared at the murderers. My family gazed back. "Emmett?" I finally asked, my voice pleading now. "You understand, don't you? You agree with me?"

My husband paused.

I didn't give him a chance to answer. I darted for the door and ran out into the forest, vaulted over the river, and disappeared into the trees. I didn't go far. Just far enough that my family wouldn't hear me crying.

It was irrational. I had known for seventy years or so that I could never be a mother, never have a child. I had accepted it, or so I thought, maybe fifty years ago. And yet the smallest thing had the power to bring back the grief I felt for the children I had never lost. When I first heard that Edward was in love with a human girl, when she asked to be changed, when they married, when they had their honeymoon. But also when I saw a toddler in a park, a baby in a pram, when I heard children's laughter, a child crying… anything and everything provoked the grief that was as familiar to me as my thirst. The news of this impossible pregnancy hit me as hard as when Carlisle had explained my loss for the first time. It only compounded the pain that this was Bella, and she had decided that her child could not live.

For an hour I sat there, weeping quietly to myself, bemoaning my dry eyes, curled up in a foetal position as if I were the poor, doomed child myself. None of my family came to look for me. Too busy preparing to murder an innocent baby, no doubt. Or maybe they knew that they couldn't comfort me. I was just beginning to consider returning to the house – after all, there was nothing I could do – when my phone rang shrilly, cutting into the soft sounds of my shaking sobs. I sat up, pulling it out and staring at the number for a second. Why on earth was Edward calling me? To apologise? Strange, when he didn't know my reaction. Had he guessed?

I was tempted to ignore it, but my curiosity won over my anger. I flipped the phone open. "Hello?"

Bella's voice startled me. "Rosalie? It's Bella. Please. You have to help me."

My anger, so temporarily abated, surged to the surface; my tone was as cold as my empty womb. "Oh?" I asked bitterly. "And what do I have to help you with?" The funeral? If she bothered. "After everything I said to you, you still make the wrong decision, Bella!" I almost spat her name. "Will you ever make the right decision?" I went to end the call.

"Wait, Rosalie!"

Against my better judgement, I did. Her voice was so emotional, so desperate. She sounded… she sounded like me. "That wasn't my decision!" It's Edward who wants to… abort… our baby. I need your help to stop him!"

"I…"

So Alice had been wrong. Maybe she did know Bella better than me, but she didn't know what being a mother meant.

Only two minutes ago, I had been crying over yet another lost opportunity for a family in the true sense of the word, and I had blamed Bella. Of course I blamed Edward and Carlisle too, but Bella had the power to stop them if she truly wanted to. It had hurt me so deeply when Alice had said that Bella wouldn't decide to do that.

But she had.

If I helped her, if we formed an alliance, we could save this child. Emmett would be on my side at the slightest hint of a threat. Esme had said it was Bella's choice. Maybe even Carlisle would come round. Alice and Edward would form the main offense, I was sure, in order to save Bella's life. But if Alice couldn't see Bella, she would have no advance warning of this. Jasper would side with Alice, but he still had difficulty being near Bella for any length of time. Hopefully that would neutralise his involvement somewhat.

I realised that I was looking at this from a cold, military perspective, but in my defence, this was as much a war as fighting the newborns had been two months ago. Except this battle had much more incentive for me to fight for.

Bella was still waiting for my answer. "Oh, Bella, of course I'll help you. I'll stop them."

I heard her exhale in relief. "Thank you so much, Rosalie. You can't know how much this means to me."

Wrong. She couldn't know how much this meant to me. Seventy years of waiting… "I'll have to disagree with you there. I know exactly what this means. If I can't be a mother, thank you for letting me be an aunt." And if she did end up dead, I would be a mother. I hated myself for thinking it, but I couldn't entirely deny it. It was that thought more than anything that prompted me to continue. "In fact, you know what, Bella? Even though I know you'll still want to be changed after this, even though I'm insanely jealous of you, I'm glad you're my sister."

"Thank you," Bella whispered. I wondered if she knew what I was really thinking. No, of course not.

"I have to go," she hissed urgently. "Edward-"

"I'll be at the airport," I said, planning it out. Hopefully enough of them would want to go that I wouldn't be incongruous. Then I would protect Bella and her child – our child – from its father and grandfather. "We'll get through this, Bella."

I flipped the phone shut with a triumphant _click, _and burst into metaphorical tears all over again.

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A/N: The next Missing Moment will be Edward's POV, from the journey home from Isle Esme to Jacob's visit at the beginning of Book 2. That's a lot of stuff, and I haven't finished it, so I'm going to apologise now for the loooong gap in between chapters 2 and 3.


	3. Questioning

A/N: So this is the first instalment of Edward's POV. I was going to wait until I'd finished the whole thing, but I realised I could find a good stopping point at around 2,500 words, and also realised that if I waited, it would take me six months to update, since I'm working on another story right now, which is coming up to 100 pages in my notebook... Anyway, this is the journey home from Isle Esme.

Disclaimer: Sadly, I **still** don't own Twilight.

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Bella was so quiet on the journey home. On the boat, in the taxi and in the airport she didn't say a word. Not a single word. Silent as her thoughts.

To be fair, I was silent too. I felt so intensely guilty, angry at myself and - though I would never tell Bella - scared that I couldn't bring myself to speak. I didn't want to burden her with the horrifying possibilities that kept forcing themselves into my brain. I didn't want to worry my love any more than she needed to be worried.

It worried me that she didn't speak, though.

More than ever, I wished I could hear my wife's thoughts. I wished I could know just how much she blamed me for this mess. I wished I could hear how scared she was, how angry, so I could comfort her. And I wished I could know why she was shooting fearful glances at me.

I had expected her to be scared, yes. But scared of me? Even though I knew I deserved her anger, it hurt me to see her fear.

Could I be reading her face wrong? After all this time, I didn't think so. I knew Bella's face better than my own. My best guess was that she was simply frightened of the creature growing inside her, and what it might do to her. She wasn't scared of me. No, however much I had hurt her, she couldn't be scared of me.

Unless she was scared that I was angry at her? After all, she had seen me lose my temper at Kaure and on the phone. She didn't think my hatred of myself and the… the _creature_ was directed at her, did she?

I wanted to reassure her, to tell her that I didn't blame her at all. After all, I had agreed to this in the first place. Then, even after I had hurt her so badly that first night, I had still allowed her to put herself at risk again. Though I had learnt to control myself better, I still should not have agreed to give myself that chance to learn.

And then I had dared to enjoy the experience! My inner revulsion swelled and pulsed, almost like a living organ, as I thought of the pleasure I had derived from an event that had put Bella at such risk- twice over! Truly, I was a monster.

We were on the plane from Rio before I spoke. I hated planes at the best of times, what with the close proximity of the huge amount of human blood with no way to escape, and the thoughts of hundreds of bored passengers to contend with, but this plane journey was one of the worst by far, after my journey to Italy. Of course, I didn't have to worry about the blood any more; with Bella beside me, nothing else provided even the slightest temptation, and I could never hurt her. The brutal reality of our current situation crashed into my mind and I mentally corrected myself: I could never drink her blood.

Bella had ordered a Coke from the flight attendant, though I was surprised she was able to keep it down – her bouts of 'morning' sickness were becoming more frequent. The Coke brought back flashes of the journey home from Italy, when she had been so determined not to sleep. To avoid her nightmares, and, as she had later confessed, to not lose a second of time with me. Was she afraid we only had so much time left together? Or was she scared of her nightmares?

So many questions I wanted the answers to, and I could only ask, as gently as I could, "Don't you want to sleep?"

My wife glanced up at me, with that same scared look in her eyes. She shook her head and her eyes flicked back down.

"Bella, sweetheart, you don't have to be afraid," I murmured. She shot another look at me – alarmed? I couldn't make sense of it. "This will all be over by tomorrow, love. There's no way anything can go wrong."

Her reaction confused me further. The blood drained from her face, leaving her looking almost as pale as me, and her hand dropped to her stomach. She rested her palm gently on the bump, which had continued to grow over the last few hours. Bella wouldn't have noticed it, but my eyes could see that she'd gained another centimetre round her belly. I looked again at her hand curved round the protruding lump. She was so aware of it; she seemed unable to move her hand away. My dead heart twisted in guilt; inadvertently, I had caused this worry.

She didn't reply, and we didn't speak again for the rest of the flight.

Our mutual silence continued as we traversed Houston airport to make our connection to Seattle. Bella had to make another dash for the bathroom, though it made me feel uneasy to let her leave my sight for a second. She merely shook her head when I suggested getting some food, after all, she would need her strength, and she didn't meet my gaze once. However, I kept my arm round her shoulders, and she rested her head on my hand as we sat in the departure gate lounge. I supposed we looked like any young couple returning from their honeymoon and contemplating the depressing return to real life. If only.

It wasn't until another couple began to approach us that I realised Bella's hand remained resting on her stomach. I heard the woman's thoughts before she spoke, and groaned internally. This was not going to help Bella at all.

"Congratulations!" the woman burst out, without any preamble. She must have been in her late twenties, like her partner behind her, and just like Bella, she had a hand placed protectively on her gently swollen stomach. "When's your due date?"

I wasn't sure how I expected Bella to react. Perhaps she might pale again as she thought of the monster in her womb, or the operation she was going through tomorrow. Perhaps the tears which had been flowing so freely would resurface.

What I certainly didn't expect was for her to smile brightly at this total stranger and say, "Not 'til next February. What about you?"

"The same!" the woman exclaimed. "I'm Lily, by the way, and this is my fiancé Mark." The man behind her nodded his head with a smile that seemed slightly careworn. The change in their relationship status had not been initiated by him.

"Bella, and this is Edward, my husband".

_Wow, _Lily thought, _married already, and so young! Though I suppose if my Mark looked like that… or maybe her parents are religious. Wedding as soon as possible so the kid's born in wedlock. Stupid moral traditions._

Mark's thoughts were in a similar vein. _How did the poor guy get tricked into that? They'll be divorced before they hit thirty. Maybe even twenty-five. How old are they? Eighteen?_

I ignored their thoughts as best as I could, and focused on my wife as Lily took a seat opposite Bella. She pulled Mark down next to her, and promptly started interrogating my love about every aspect of her pregnancy. Even more surprising than Bella's persistently enthusiastic mood were the well-thought-out answers she provided to Lily's intrusive questions.

For example, when Bella was asked about baby names, she answered without a moment of hesitation. "If it's a boy, then I think I'd like to name him after his father, but I was worried that might get confusing." She smiled at me, and I forced myself to smile back before she turned away again, quickly.

"And if it's a girl?" Lily pressed.

"I really don't know. I've played with all the usual things, you know, your 'Jessica's and your 'Emily's and your 'Laura's, but it seems like any name I think of is already taken by someone I'd rather not name my daughter after."

I always knew when Bella was lying, she was so easy to read, but this was the absolute truth. That confused me even more. Why had Bella been thinking about baby names? Unless she had seen this coming, guessed that someone would ask. Could that be what she'd been thinking about over the last few hours? And was that the only reason why she had thought of exactly what she would name her child?

As Bella and Lily nattered on, Mark leaned forward and said to me in an undertone, "Mad, isn't it? You think you know a girl, and then she gets pregnant. I don't understand it at all. Wish I knew what she was thinking. You never know, it might help."

"My sentiments exactly," I agreed, and we turned to watch the women we loved, both completely incomprehensible to us.

Once we were on the plane, separated from Lily and Mark by two dozen rows, I plucked up the courage to ask Bella about her incredibly detailed observations on a baby that didn't exist.

"You seemed to have planned out… a lot," I said to her quietly as the cabin crew demonstrated the correct use of a child's oxygen mask.

"I thought it would be best," Bella replied, without looking at me. "You know how inquisitive people are, I thought we might need a… cover story, as it were." A slight edge entered her voice as she spoke the last few words and I stared at her, trying to read in her face what she had left out in her words. A blush grew in her cheeks as I gazed at her, but she remained intently focused on the on-board safety card and after a moment, I gave up.

We lapsed into silence again.

The flight from Houston to Seattle seemed to take forever as I contemplated Bella's strange behaviour. Surely I couldn't put this down to hormones or lack of food and sleep. This was Bella when she was trying to hide something, when she was deep in thought. Except what was there to hide? Her emotions? Was she trying not to show me how scared she really was? No, that couldn't be it.

Bella seemed to grow more and more tense as we neared Seattle. I assumed she was nervous about the operation; I knew how much she hated needles and blood. But that didn't seem quite right, somehow.

When we disembarked, I reached down to take her hand, but she didn't twine her fingers with mine like she normally did. Her hand hung limply in my grasp as we made our way off the plane and eventually I let it drop. After our fortnight on the island, always so close, it felt strange to have to let her go and stranger still that she had initiated that. Then there was the way she still wouldn't look at me as I pulled our luggage from the conveyor and led her to the Arrivals meeting zone.

The thoughts of the thousands of travellers buzzed unbidden in my head as they always did. I could hear Lily and Mark somewhere behind us. They seemed to be arguing, and in an attempt to drown out the rest of the world, I listened in.

It was possibly the worst decision I had ever made. Or the best. I really didn't know.

_She never even wanted a child and now she's gonna give up work for it? How the bloody hell did her feelings change so quickly? _Mark complained.

_Why can't he understand – it's his child too! But then he's a man, he can't know what it feels like to have a life growing inside you, so much part of me and so much part of him. I don't care if it might be disabled, it's my child!_

Lily hadn't mentioned the potential disability earlier. She hadn't even thought about it, she was so caught up in the beautiful picture in her head of a perfect child. Mark, I guessed, had been trying not to think about it. It matched with his current state of mind anyway. It seemed like he had provoked the argument somehow, though I didn't know how. Then I heard Lily think something that set my head spinning.

_How dare he simply assume I want an abortion, just because we don't know how our child will turn out?_

Hadn't I done that? Hadn't I assumed that Bella would want an abortion too? But the situations were completely different: a human disability didn't equate to a monster.

_I love this child every bit as much as I love him. I can't just murder it._

Murder. Did Bella think of it like that? I'd never asked what she thought of abortion, even in the abstract. It hadn't been a topic that had ever come up.

_Even if it hurts me, I can do this for our baby._

But it will hurt her. I forgot it was Lily thinking, and thought only of my wife.

_God only knows, I would die for our child._

No!

Just then, Bella looked up as I heard six minds more familiar to me than anyone else.

_She looks fine to me, this should be routine. _Carlisle's assessment.

_The poor dears, this must be so traumatic for them both. _Esme's motherly concern.

_Now that's one hell of an emotional cauldron, _Jasper thought worriedly.

_Nothing for a century and then he knocks her up first time! Well, unless they did it again… _Emmett mused in his typical, aggravating, brotherly fashion.

Alice, always the first to remember I could hear her, was alarmed. _Edward, I don't understand what's going on. I can see Bella next to you, but she's so blurry! I can't see the foetus at all! And Rosalie's been acting strangely, I'd keep her away from Bella if I were you._

I nodded slightly at her. Yes, Rosalie would hate the news of this pregnancy almost as much as she would detest the news of the abortion. She would be so angry, livid at us, Bella and I.

But just as I was thinking this, my wife leapt forwards and ran straight into her sister-in-law's arms.

Not Alice, her best friend, the girl she'd relied on for help showering when her leg was in a cast, the person who had run to her when she had jumped off a cliff, her maid of honour at her wedding.

No, Bella ran to Rosalie, who had hated her from the day they'd met and before, who'd refused to switch clothes to save her life, who still didn't want Bella to be part of our family in truth.

Bella ran to Rosalie, who had wanted a child more than anything else for over seventy years, who would do anything for a baby, who didn't care for Bella's life at all.

She ran to Rosalie, who hugged Bella like the sister that she was and said, "I promised I'd be here."

* * *

A/N: Next up (and this one may well be a six-month gap, for which I apologise) is what happens next. Hmmm. You could have worked that out yourselves, couldn't you? Sorry.


	4. Home

A/N: This chapter follows on immediately from the previous one. Rosalie and Bella are hugging in the airport. This chapter is longer than the last one, which is why it took such a long time to update. Enjoy!

* * *

EPOV

The unlikely pair smiled at each other with identical faces of gratitude and I understood now. They were silently thanking each other for agreeing to save the child they both loved already.

I was frozen in horrified shock for a second, and then I was at Bella's side. In the same instant Rosalie twisted round to put herself between us. A hiss slid between her lips, too quiet for any of the milling humans to hear, though Bella shuddered slightly. I ignored my sister as far as I was able, tuning out her threatening thoughts.

"What are you doing, Bella?" I asked. As if I didn't already know.

"I'm not going to kill our baby, Edward," she told me gently from behind Rosalie's defensive position.

Before I could reply, Rosalie interrupted in a scornful voice. "Didn't you even ask her what she thought? Didn't you bother to think that your _wife _might have an opinion of her own?"

I found I could not answer as I wished, because the accusation was, in essence, correct. I had not even considered the possibility that Bella might not want to rid her body of this creature.

"Bella," I started again. "Why didn't you tell me?" And why did you tell Rosalie?

"Because I knew you would try to stop me," she answered. "I knew you would still make me go through with the… operation."

I blanched at the accusation her words carried, though her tone assured me that she loved me still. What did that make me? The man who would force her to kill her child, the man who had never even bothered to check for consent before blundering ahead to do whatever he wished; barely a man at all. Bella and I remained locked in each other's eyes for a long moment.

I had almost forgotten the rest of our family standing there, watching us in varying degrees of curiosity, understanding and horror, until Carlisle moved forward.

"Let's continue this discussion at home where we can speak freely," he suggested, his calm face creased in concern.

"Bella's riding with me," Rosalie insisted, adding to her statement in her head. _So you and Carlisle don't try to butcher her as soon as my back is turned._

"That's not necessary, Rose," I argued, but she ignored me.

I looked to Bella, to see how she would react to this. She had her eyes focused on the grey, utilitarian floor, refusing to meet my eye. It was obvious that she thought this _was _necessary. All her fearful glances on the plane took on a new meaning. She really was afraid of me, afraid of what I would do to the thing I had fathered.

"Bella," I said yet again, and I could hear the pain in my own whisper.

She looked up, her eyes filling with tears. I started to go to her, to take her in my arms and stroke her hair, but Carlisle spoke again.

"Edward, leave Bella alone for a while. You can ride with Esme, Jasper and myself. Alice and Emmett can ride with Rosalie and Bella."

I felt like a child, being told what to do after a transgression. Rosalie smiled triumphantly and the four of them started off to the car. Bella glanced at me once more before Rosalie had her arm round my wife, supporting her, guiding her towards the exit. Alice shot me a look before she turned to follow.

_I'm on your side on this. It's far too dangerous. I'll try and talk some sense into her._

I nodded gratefully, and followed my parents off to the other car, Jasper bringing up the rear. My thoughts continued revolving around my soul mate, walking willingly away from me.

No one spoke as we approached Carlisle's Mercedes. Carlisle and Esme slid into the front seats, leaving Jasper and I to sit in the back. How many comparisons to children would I be forced to make today? As soon as the doors closed, I leant my head into my hands and closed my eyes. Jasper immediately got to work calming my mood, which of course had been Carlisle's intention. Esme stared out the window, working through the ramifications of Bella's actions. I heard the assumptions that our family had immediately made, just like me: Bella would not risk her life and mine for a child. I was struck by Rosalie's rare insight into Bella's mind, and the guilt that Esme felt for not considering that Bella might have made this decision.

As we pulled out of the airport car park, my father began a discussion I fervently wished there was no need for. Normally, he would converse with me with his thoughts, but today he spoke aloud. This was a matter for the entire family.

"You know I am ashamed of you, Edward. Did you not discuss this matter with Bella?"

I groaned. "I thought she would agree with me; see that it was too dangerous."

"And have you discussed these potential dangers with her? Does she fully know the risk she's taking?"

"No."

I could see now the huge mistake I had made. The second I had put down the phone after talking to Carlisle, I should have convinced her of the horrific possibilities; made her see that her own life was in danger before I let her worry about the life of the creature.

Esme raised her head now. "Edward," she began hesitantly, but I heard the direction her thoughts were taking and stopped her.

"No. Absolutely not."

"What did we miss?" Carlisle asked, while Jasper numbed the fury rolling off me in waves. My teeth were clenched, so Esme was forced to answer her husband's question.

"I asked him if he had considered agreeing with her."

Even Carlisle's eyes widened slightly as he processed this. "Do you agree with her?" he asked Esme.

"I would ask her to do the same for me."

This didn't fully answer the question, and her thoughts revealed more, but neither of us elaborated, and we continued home in silence. The damp, dull green and grey landscape flashed past the tinted windows. Such a contrast from the bright sunny island, and such a change in mood! The bliss of our honeymoon seemed so far behind us now.

Rosalie's party reached the house before us; Carlisle's driving was far more sedate than Emmett's. When we emerged into the living room from the inevitable rain outside, Bella was already on the couch, Rosalie standing protectively by her side. Emmett was in an armchair watching a baseball game on TV and Alice, surprisingly, was curled up at the far end of the room, her elfin face twisted into a grimace.

_Ow! My head is killing me already! So weird – she's blurred somehow. Still can't see more than a few minutes ahead – ow! _she protested again. She looked up at me, then. _Sorry Edward, I can't change her mind. I don't understand how she's changed so much! Maybe if I remembered, I would, but…_

I shook my head and smiled at her with the tiniest possible movement of my lips. It wasn't Alice's fault that she didn't remember being human. Or that Bella's thoughts remained a mystery.

Bella looked up too, concern in her eyes. I didn't know if it was concern for herself, her baby or me. Maybe I didn't want to know.

Even as I thought it, though, I knew that wasn't true. I wanted to know everything she was thinking, all the time, but now more than ever. I wanted to comprehend why on earth she was doing this to me, so I could change her mind.

Suddenly, she gasped, her eyes widening in pain and shock. Thought I was at her side immediately, Rosalie got there first.

"What is it?" we both asked at the same time, my voice tense with fear, hers gentle but concerned. Each of us glared at the other for getting in the way, before turning back to Bella.

"I think…" Bella began, but she paused with another frightened glance at me.

Rosalie turned her head briefly to flash another glare at me, and then returned her gaze to Bella's face.

"It's okay," she reassured my love. "You can say."

Bella studiously didn't look at me as she answered. "The baby just kicked."

There was a pause. "Can I see?" Rosalie asked.

For an answer, Bella nodded and drew up her top to expose her stomach. The sight of her bare skin filled me with revulsion.

A very small part of it was an old fashioned desire for modesty. Another miniscule part was that I was her husband and so only I had the right to see this. But the most major cause for my disgust was the inky bruise that was flowering just above her navel. Bella would perceive it as a faint shadow, but my unbearably sharp eyes could see it clear as day.

It reminded me of watching her sleep on that first night on the island. Watching helplessly as first one bruise, then another, and another bloomed on her skin like violets, and knowing it was my fault. Knowing I had hurt her. This was a thousand times worse because if I hadn't hurt her then, if I hadn't agreed to Bella's demand, she would not be hurting now, and because I felt powerless as to stop it happening again. If she insisted on keeping the – I struggled with calling it a baby or child, and settled for foetus – then this would happen again and again, and if its strength increased… I shuddered, and my eyes closed.

Bella's warm hand reached out and stroked my cheek. "Edward, it's fine, honestly. It doesn't hurt that much."

So typically Bella. Trying to make me feel better. Telling me she was fine. The reference to our first night made me moan again.

I didn't open my eyes as I spoke. "Bella, this won't stop. If it can bruise you now, how long before it starts breaking your bones?"

Her thumb brushed against my cheekbone and I reached up with my cold fingers to keep her warm digits against my face.

"I'll heal, Edward," she murmured.

"And if you don't?" I opened my eyes and braced myself to speak the impossibility. "Bella, what do I do if it kills you?"

She didn't flinch. Instead, she glanced at Rosalie before answering. "You won't let that happen. I'm strong enough to keep my heart beating. I will survive long enough to keep our baby alive, and then you will change me. You'll save me." She looked at Rosalie now. "I'm sorry, Rose; I know how you feel about that."

Rosalie shook her head. "I was only against that decision when you could have had a life. Since we all know you want this, if it does become life or death – and I'm sure it won't – I'd rather keep you alive. If only to stop Edward from being depressed for the rest of eternity."

No one laughed at the intended joke. Especially since I knew firstly that I could not live through losing Bella, and secondly that Rosalie didn't really care whether my wife lived or died. She was too intent on ensuring the foetus' survival.

"Thanks," Bella said.

"Don't mention it," Rosalie smiled beatifically.

Ignoring their little exchange, I pressed on. "Bella, if you die, I can't save you. You know that."

"I won't die," she insisted.

I gritted my teeth. "We don't know that. Alice can't see more than a few minutes ahead for you now. There's no warning available."

Bella's voice became angry, and she pulled her hand away. "What do you want me to do? Do you want me to let you kill our child? To let you murder it?"

It was a challenge. She was daring me to say it.

"If it keeps you alive. Yes."

She tried to glare at me, but her eyes were brimming with tears. I felt instantly guilty, but I couldn't say no. It would be a lie.

Carlisle broke the resultant silence. "May I suggest we do an ultrasound scan now?"

Rosalie moved to protest, but he held his hands up in the traditional sign of surrender. "If Bella decides to keep the child I will still take a scan, so this is entirely innocent."

Stiffly, Rosalie nodded, and Bella got heavily to her feet, wiping her eyes. Carlisle began to lead the way upstairs.

"You have ultrasound machinery at home?" Bella asked as Rosalie helped her up the stairs, me following right behind. She struggled to keep the tears out of her voice, and nearly succeeded.

We were in Carlisle's office before he answered. "I thought it best to keep this in the family."

She blushed. "Thanks again."

Slowly, she moved to the hospital-like bed Carlisle had set up, taking in the various types of machinery in the room. I ran my eyes over the medical equipment too. Not only ultrasound, but X-ray imaging, syringes, drips… I exchanged a look with my father. _I was prepared for her to come home in much worse shape than she actually is._

I grimaced. Why couldn't Bella see the danger?

She was laying on the bed now, her top pulled up again to display her swollen stomach and the hideous bruising. I should have been at her side, holding her hand, but I could not bring myself to watch, to bear witness to the damage I had indirectly inflicted on her. I stood with my back against the thick wooden door, my eyes closed, as if by putting this out of sight, I could put it out of my mind, too. Therefore, it was their thoughts that warned me first.

_Strange, _thought Carlisle. _The equipment is sound…_

Alice, who, like me, was as far away from Bella as she could feasibly get in the small room, now moved forward. _I can't see its future, and now we can't see it at all. What __is__ it?_

My eyes snapped open and I stepped forward to see the picture I had already seen in six minds.

Blankness. The screen showed nothing; it was as if the foetus didn't exist. But we couldn't be wrong. We weren't wrong.

"What's going on?" Bella asked, scared now. I suppressed a groan. Why couldn't she be scared for herself?

"Well, I'm not sure, but… as it's obvious that there is a foetus there, I'm guessing that there's a barrier between your skin and the foetus. Which suggests that the amniotic sac is stronger than human skin," Carlisle theorised.

"Vampire skin," I muttered. What more proof did we need that this thing was a monster?

"What does that mean?" Bella asked.

"Merely that we don't know how it will develop. Also that it will be difficult to tell _how _developed the foetus is. It would therefore make timing a Caesarean more difficult." Carlisle looked at me again. _And it will make a Caesarean or an abortion far more difficult to perform without using our teeth._

So whatever happened, we would have to change Bella. Well, I'd long since accepted that she would become like me. I just wished it didn't have to happen like this.

Rosalie handed Bella a tissue; she smiled slightly at her and began to wipe the gel off her stomach. I saw her wince as her fingers passed over the bruise. Unable to help myself, I flitted to her side but again Rosalie was there first. She scowled at me yet again before asking Bella if she was alright.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Um. Shall we head back downstairs?"

Wordlessly, I opened the door, and Bella swung her legs off the bed. She stood carefully, so carefully, to avoid jostling the foetus. Rosalie moved to help her again but she shook her head and pointedly walked over to me. She stared at me pleadingly.

"Please don't let this divide us. Please."

I tried to smile at her, but I couldn't manage it. Once I had told Bella I was a good liar, but I couldn't lie to her now. Not with my face and words at least. Instead, I hugged her gently, relishing her familiar warmth against my chest, and kissed the top of her head. There were so many things I wanted to say, but half of them were untrue and the other half would only hurt her. So I said nothing, just feeling her arms snake around me and her cheek press against my silent heart.

I wished with all my heart and soul—though one was dead and the other long lost—that this moment didn't have to end. That Bella would always be in my arms and we would never have to deal with these problems that kept forcing themselves upon us. But even as I crushed my love gently to me, I could feel the protruding lump of her stomach, pushing her away from me. Dividing us literally, as well as metaphorically.

Eventually I had to release her, though I kept an arm around her as she traversed the stairs. I was faintly surprised that Rosalie allowed me to be this close to Bella, but then I heard her shadowing our footsteps, and the inarticulate warning in her head, and knew that she would not tolerate any efforts at persuasion on my part, or any greater physical proximity in case it upset Bella's fragile health. Like a chaperone or a minder, Rosalie would always be there.

We reconvened in the living room. Our usually rambunctious family was uncharacteristically quiet. Even Emmett's thoughts were subdued. He was none too sure about Rosalie's motives for helping Bella, and was deeply concerned over his little sister's fate. Though Emmett and Bella were so different, they had formed a strong brother-sister bond almost immediately on meeting. He had missed her when we were away for those long months, though he had made me promise not to tell Rose. It hadn't mattered—I had barely spoken to anyone during that time.

Alice stood against the glass wall, both her small hands pressed to her forehead as she tried desperately to avoid looking for Bella. Jasper kept his arm round her, trying to calm her. Though Bella pulled me down to sit next to her, and leaned her head against my shoulder, Rosalie stood directly behind us.

"Are you alright?" I asked Bella, ignoring Rosalie. "Do you want anything to eat? You haven't eaten properly for two days."

She shook her head and looked up at me. "In a minute. I think we need to talk first."

I sighed. Of course she was right. I just didn't want to argue with her when she was in this state. Or ever, come to that. "Well, where do you want to start?"

She bit her lip, and I realised that she desperately didn't want to argue with me either. Instead, she glanced up at Carlisle. "Do you have any idea of how the baby will… turn out?"

"Very little," he answered honestly, while he reacted mentally to her use of the word 'will'. There was no doubt in her mind that she was keeping the creature, then. "However, we can assume that it is not fully human from the accelerated pregnancy, the ultrasound results and the bruising."

I winced.

"It is also obviously not fully vampiric which we can deduce from the simple fact that it is growing. So, other than that, I can honestly say that I have no idea what your child is, how it will develop, or whether you will be strong enough to carry it full term."

Though Carlisle's voice was compassionate as always, calm and soothing, the bluntness of his words made me shudder. In contrast, Bella merely nodded, as if she'd expected nothing better.

"And what exactly are the risks?"

She sounded so composed, almost detached, and I highly doubted any risk would change her mind. Always so stubborn, and with a complete disregard for her own safety.

Rosalie didn't agree with my evaluation. "Don't start trying to frighten her into changing her mind," she warned Carlisle. "This is all just theory."

Carlisle lowered his head wearily. "As a matter of fact, the main risk we're taking if you decide to go ahead is that we don't know _what _the risks are. Though judging by the bruise you've just acquired, the strength of the foetus is something to worry about."

"But even human children can break ribs," Rosalie interjected.

"And so the prospect of the harm _this _child could inflict is cause for concern," Carlisle countered.

"Worst case possibility?" Bella asked in a businesslike manner.

"I would be concerned that either a rib could puncture a lung, or for your spine."

Everyone save Rosalie and Bella flinched. Alice moaned quietly as she automatically tried to look for such a possibility.

"Venom would repair that, though," Rosalie said.

"How can you be so sure?" I asked her. "Even Esme's injuries didn't include a broken spine!"

"Much as I'm unsure, I am inclined to agree with Rosalie here," Carlisle said soothingly. "I believe venom would heal that. However, I cannot be certain."

"It's still only a possibility," Rosalie insisted.

Bella nodded slightly, but I could see her eyes were slightly troubled. Could I possibly make her see it my way?

Of course not. Almost reflexively, her left hand drifted down to her stomach, her wedding band sparkling against her cotton top, and her expression suddenly cleared. "It's still worth it."

"Why?" I asked her in anguish. "Why is this worth risking your life? Why is this worth taking yourself away from me forever?"

Carlisle's blunt words had barely touched her, but suddenly her eyes filled with tears. Rosalie hissed at my insensitivity, but I honestly didn't understand why my attitude saturated her face with pain.

"Bella, less than a month ago, on the eve of our wedding, you told me you didn't mind giving all this up. And then we weren't considering the factor that becoming a mother—" her eyes flared briefly at the word "—would endanger your life! What changed your mind? Why are you doing this now?"

Bella's stifled sobs and her steady heartbeat were the only sounds for a second. Then she took a deep breath and began to speak, hesitantly, unsure of what she was saying. I clung to her every word.

"It's not… being a mother… in particular… nor having a child. It's _this _child, Edward, it's _your _child. It's… part of me, and it's part of you. And… I love it—him, her—just for being him or her. I love you just the same—just for being you. It doesn't matter that I don't know them yet, it doesn't matter what he or she is, I can't help but love them. Like I can't help loving you."

I heard the echo to our first honest conversation: "_it doesn't matter to me what you are."_ She was pleading with me to understand, to see what she meant. I shook my head, sadly.

"All I care about is you."

"And your family," Esme said unexpectedly. We both looked up as she moved to stand next to Carlisle. "You love all of us, too. If you didn't, you wouldn't be here now. You couldn't kill me, or Alice, or Carlisle. This child is part of your family too, but closer. Connected by… well, not by blood, but connected to you all the same."

"But we don't know what it is! How can I feel close to a potential monster? Something that's threatening Bella's life?"

Esme's voice was quiet. "You forgave Jasper."

Jasper stiffened at the memory, and my eyes closed briefly at the consequences of that night. The long, black months, the pain that was so great that it didn't exist, so I had felt nothingness and been filled with emptiness.

_You took yourself away and it nearly killed you both. Taking this baby away will affect her just the same._

Instinctively, my arm tightened around Bella's shoulders. How close I had been to instigating my own death, just to be with her again, even if it was in non-existence. The measures I was prepared to go to, the pain I had been willing to cause; I visited that period of my life as little as I could. If aborting the foetus would cause that reaction in Bella, could _I_ possibly see this _her_ way? I stared into her beautiful eyes, so determined, so scared, and so loving. So alive. I exhaled slowly, and those eyes brightened in hope. Or maybe hope wasn't the best description, since it was combined with such fear. I think that she was scared to let herself hope. More than anything, her fear was what prompted me to reconsider. Bella shouldn't be afraid of me.

"I'm not going to promise anything, love." Her eyes sparkled with emotion and tears. "But… let's see how it goes, alright? I'm not saying yes," I added hurriedly. "We'll reconsider in a couple of days, once we can see how your body is coping."

Rosalie beamed triumphantly. Bella leant forward and captured my lips in a kiss. As her soft skin shaped itself to match my embrace, I couldn't stop my mind imagining just how easily the foetus could harm her. Too easily. I almost told her no, I couldn't even agree to a postponement, but then she broke away, just a millimetre, and whispered, "Thank you."

* * *

The family buzzed into action: Carlisle retrieved yet more medical equipment from the hospital, Alice went shopping to stock the house with all the human essentials we hadn't known we would need here, Esme fussed over making Bella comfortable and cleaning my room, and Emmett, Jasper and Carlisle threw themselves into researching human-vampire pregnancies. As if such a thing should be possible!

What little information they could glean from the internet and Carlisle's immense collection of interesting vampire myths was unreliable, vague and contradictory. I suggested looking into Ticuna legends, since the cleaning lady Kaure had seemed to know so much. However, when Carlisle returned with the results only a few hours after we had arrived home, just after Bella had finally eaten some dinner, I almost wished I had never had the idea.

Neither Rosalie nor I ever left Bella's side, so I was listening from the sitting room when Jasper uncovered two corresponding accounts of children of the Libishomen. I heard him scan through an obscure website, paying little attention until he read it for the fourth time. Vampires had perfect recall, photographic memories, so why reread an article about…

I froze in horror. Bella, of course, noticed.

"Edward? Are you okay? What is it?"

I smoothed my face with a little effort. "It's probably nothing. Jasper just found something about… well, cases like yours."

Bella's eyes tightened slightly as I finished the sentence; I realised at once the mistakes I had made. Firstly, I should have said 'pregnancies', rather than 'cases'. And secondly, if I had to say 'cases', it should have been 'cases like ours'. Not 'yours'.

Carlisle entered the room then. _You heard?_ he asked. I nodded.

Rosalie frowned. "Could you tell us what you're saying, or would that require too much effort?" she asked sarcastically.

Noting the plural, I addressed Bella. "You don't need to know this."

As if to contradict me, Jasper called from Carlisle's study, "I've got a third match."

He had to choose now to speak at a volume audible to human ears. Bella's eyes fixed on mine.

"Tell me," she said quietly.

"You know we were looking into the legends Kaure mentioned," I began.

She nodded, and a shadow clouded her eyes for a second.

"Well, Jasper just found out why she said—" I stopped; I couldn't say this. I broke away from Bella's gaze.

There was a short pause and I could feel her eyes on me, before Bella turned away. "Carlisle?"

Carlisle glanced at me before speaking. "We've found out why there were no survivors," he continued for me. _Shall I go on? _he asked.

I nodded jerkily.

He took a deep breath. "According to her people's legends, the child escapes the womb, and the amniotic sac, by using its own teeth."

Rosalie blanched slightly; she hadn't thought of this. Her face became coldly calculating, as she worked through the ramifications of such an eventuality. I turned my head away from her, back to Bella, ignoring my adopted sister's thoughts as much as I could.

To my surprise, my wife barely reacted. This was beyond unbelievable. Her eyes didn't even widen.

"You knew, didn't you?" I accused her. "You worked this out."

Shamefacedly, she nodded. "I was thinking about how you get through vampire skin. It made sense."

If Bella had realised this possibility, why had I been blind to it? After all, Carlisle had admitted that we would have to perform a Caesarean using our teeth. Some part of me must have known, I theorised, but had blocked it from my consciousness. The picture now leapt unbidden into my mind, vivid and horrific: Bella's body convulsing, being ripped apart from the inside. I shivered involuntarily, my eyes closing, and I felt Bella's little hand against my cheek. _She _was comforting _me_! I pressed her hand to my face with my own, feeling ashamed as I realised I needed her comfort.

"What that means is that a natural birth is impossible without unacceptable risk, so a Caesarean is our only remaining option," Carlisle continued. We both turned to watch him. "Of course you'll be under anaesthetic, but I think you should be aware that we will have to use our teeth to perform the procedure."

Bella nodded, persistently unsurprised. She had probably guessed this as soon as Carlisle and I had.

"Does that mean we'll have to change her as we're delivering the baby?" Rosalie asked.

A spark of interest ignited in Bella's eyes. Presumably this question had occurred to her as well.

"Possibly not," Carlisle said. "If we can remove the amniotic sac before opening it, then the venom shouldn't affect you."

"Will it affect the baby?" Bella asked, afraid.

Rosalie's thoughts whirred into a frantic whirlwind. _Not the baby, please say the baby will be alright. It's not human, it shouldn't be affected—will it be venomous itself? Will it have blood? If it doesn't have blood, maybe it won't be affected by venom._

I was abruptly angry at both of them for worrying about the baby first. Did neither of them care for Bella's life? For my life? Because I couldn't exist unless Bella did. It was simply impossible, and we all knew that. Even Rosalie knew that. Especially Rosalie knew that.

"I hope not," Carlisle replied. "Theoretically it shouldn't, since we're not putting any venom into the child's bloodstream. But I'm not going to lie to you and say I'm sure, because I'm not. We have no way of knowing for certain."

"I guess that's the best I can ask for," Bella said, smiling slightly though her eyes remained troubled. "Thank you, Carlisle."

He smiled back at her and left to go back upstairs, sorting out the various medications he had retrieved for Bella, who now lay back on the sofa, leaning her head against my chest. We stayed like that for a few minutes, Rosalie hovering behind us.

"I really hope I don't have to be changed whilst giving birth," Bella said suddenly.

"Why?" Rosalie asked.

She sighed. "Well, partly because I'd rather it was a choice, not a necessity, and partly because I'm worried that… if the baby has blood, then I won't be able to be around him."

I hadn't considered that. For Bella to fight so hard for this child and be condemned to miss its first year… I cut the thought off. I was beginning to think like her. As though I wanted this child too.

Rosalie was full of reassurances. "It won't come to that, I'm sure. And if it does, we'll take care of it until you're totally under control."

_Imagine that, _she thought to herself. _I would be like a surrogate mother to it. Practically the only mother it would know._

She broke off and glared at me, realising her error. _Don't tell Bella I thought that. You know I can't control my thoughts._

I returned her glare, but nodded. Bella didn't need to worry about Rose wanting her to die. Then again, she was so perceptive that she had probably picked up on that already, or at least registered our silent conversation. I glanced down at her, just in time to see her yawn widely.

"Oh, Bella, I'm sorry, I should have thought you'd be tired," I apologised, mentally slapping myself. Of course that was why she hadn't slept on the plane: she hadn't wanted to reveal her plans to me via her sleep-talking.

"No, I'm alright," she insisted. "It's my fault for staying awake. Plus, it's only six thirty; I don't want to muck up my body clock."

"You are pregnant," Rosalie pointed out. "Your body clock should already be out of kilter."

"I suppose it is," Bella agreed. "I couldn't stop sleeping on the island."

Esme came in at that point, having heard our entire conversation thanks to vampire hearing. She had been discussing Jasper's findings with Carlisle, and had been seriously shaken by them, but she covered that up now.

"I never asked, did you like the island?" she asked Bella.

"Oh, it's so beautiful!" Bella said, her eyes shining. "It's absolutely amazing, thank you so much for letting us stay there."

"It was my pleasure," Esme said, smiling.

"Ah, I need to talk to you about that," I realised, remembering the state of the headboard in the blue room and the lack of pillows in the white room.

Bella struggled to repress a giggle, whilst blushing furiously, and I knew she was thinking of the same thing.

Esme looked at me curiously until Rosalie put Bella's expression and my words together, and burst out laughing. Then I heard my mother's tentative guess in her head, and I nodded shamefacedly.

Surprisingly, she let out a girlish giggle herself and then the three of them were all laughing uncontrollably. I watched, bemused, as tears began leaking from Bella's eyes and Rosalie clutched at the sofa. Esme was shaking and I strived to comprehend what was so funny about it. After all, I had been destroying the furniture only to save Bella's life. And why on earth did _Bella_ find this funny? Why was she not embarrassed into silence?

I was still staring at the three of them when Alice walked in the door, laden with so many bags that I could barely see her beneath them.

"What's so funny?" she asked, directing the question at me since I was actually able to speak, but I merely shrugged my shoulders and Rosalie managed to choke out an answer.

"Edward… and Bella… that first night… the island house… Edward!" she finished and dissolved into laughter again.

I groaned, putting two and two together. "You saw this, didn't you?" I accused Alice, who was now laughing with the rest of them, having dumped her bags on the floor.

She nodded. _Not much, _she assured me. _I mean, I didn't want to! It's wrong! You're my brother for goodness' sake! But I saw the pillows, and Rose made me tell… and then the headboard… so they all know, and they couldn't believe that Edward-the-prude… _she laughed harder as she realised what she had just thought. _Sorry! Sorry!_

I closed my eyes in embarrassment and exasperation. Could this situation get any worse?

Apparently it could. Emmett had finally worked out exactly what the girls were laughing at and burst into the room.

"Yeah, I had been planning to mention that as soon as you got home, but now'll do I suppose."

"Right!" I said loudly, before Emmett could voice any of the sordid thoughts running through his head. "Best get you to bed," I said to Bella.

She laughed harder, if that was possible, as did everyone else in the room, and I realised the connotations of what I'd just said. Well, it was hard not to when everyone was screaming at me in their minds. I threw my head back and pinched the bridge of my nose to stop myself either lashing out or running from the room, possibly the house, maybe even the state.

Abruptly, Bella stopped laughing and gasped in pain. Her eyes flew open as her pupils dilated and her hands flew to her belly.

"Bella!" I said, and suddenly everyone was swarming around her. Rosalie whipped around the sofa to stand in front of us, Alice right next to her; Esme knelt by Bella's legs and Carlisle dashed downstairs and was by our sides in an instant. Emmett hovered on the periphery, wanting to help, but not sure he could actually do anything helpful, while Jasper followed Carlisle in and immediately began calming me.

"What is it?" Rosalie, Carlisle and I asked simultaneously. It would have been comical in any other situation. Bella smiled weakly anyway.

"Baby kicked again," she said quietly. "You don't need to worry so much, you'll have to get used to this."

Alice frowned at the reminder of Bella's stubbornness, but Rosalie smiled slightly, pleased she hadn't been put off. Carlisle and Esme exchanged a glance; both of them were wondering how much more she could take.

"Are you alright?" Carlisle asked. "Is it any worse than last time?"

"Pretty much the same, I think," she said, and pulled up her top to take a look.

"Yup, another bruise," she said flippantly, and I grimaced again, half at what she was saying and half at her tone of voice. I was sure, though, that she was at least slightly scared. She just didn't want me to know that.

No one spoke for a moment, though of course it was never silent for me. I reflected on how quickly the brief moment of levity had passed, and wished we could all be laughing again. Even if it was at my expense.

_Edward, _Esme asked tentatively.

I met her gaze to show her I was listening.

_I need to talk to Bella. Nothing hideous, and I'm not going to try to change her mind, but she needs a mother-daughter talk about pregnancy, and how it's affecting her, rather than just her body. Take her upstairs, and then I'll have a chat with her._

I nodded, hearing the clutter of ideas and memories in her head. Esme was right, Bella needed to be spoken to by her mother, and Renée was hardly an option bearing in mind Bella was pregnant with an unknown quantity by a vampire and looking to be halfway to full term approximately two and a half weeks after conception.

"Come on, Bella," I murmured, and scooped her up in my arms. She nuzzled her head into my chest slightly, and I could have cried.

The rest of our family made way with grave expressions as I carried my pregnant wife upstairs to our room.

* * *

A/N: Next chapter is from Esme's POV, her chat with Bella. I'll try and get it up within a week, but no promises. I'm overloaded with a show I'm in, a history essay that I haven't started, music coursework and revision for a thousand tests (or nearly). Sorry.


	5. Mother to daughter

A/N: A daughter always needs a chat with her mother at times of crisis. Esme knows this well. This chapter is primarily her and Bella, discussing the pregnancy.

Disclaimer: No, I still don't own Twilight. But I can't wait for the film!

* * *

Rosalie made to follow Edward as he carried Bella upstairs, but I put a hand on her arm.

"Leave them be," I told her gently. "He won't change her mind suddenly, and he has agreed to wait to decide. Give them a moment together."

Alice nodded. "I know I can't really see her, but I can see him if I look round her, and he's not planning anything you could find objection to."

Emmett nodded, uncharacteristically serious, and retreated with Jasper to continue their work. Carlisle kissed the top of my head and returned upstairs. Rosalie looked like she was about to protest, but I stopped her.

"Leave them be," I repeated. "Give them just fifteen minutes alone, and then I need to talk to Bella anyway."

"I can't trust him, Esme," Rosalie said fiercely. "He'd abort the baby at a moment's notice."

"I know, Rose," I said sympathetically. I knew Edward would do anything to keep Bella alive.

My initial reaction to Bella and Edward's impossible child, after the shock, had been joy. A child! My grandchild! A joyous prospect I had long since given up. True, I was a mother to Alice and Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett, Edward and now Bella, but it wasn't the same, couldn't be the same as bringing up your own flesh and blood: a growing, changing person who you can influence and love and who will love you unconditionally back.

I had had my own little baby once, for a few fleeting, perfect days. My beautiful baby boy, my darling son, the only thing that made me life slightly more worthwhile. I had already escaped an abusive husband and set myself up as a teacher while I was pregnant; I was desperate to bring my baby into a world where it would only be loved. I told everyone I met that my husband was dead in the wars, so I was accepted as a widow. I had nothing in the world besides my unborn child, and that was far more than I needed to survive. My child was everything and more to me.

Yet though I remembered with astonishing clarity my child's brilliant blue eyes and the love I lavished on him day and night, I could not remember his death at all. My human mind had tried to block the catastrophic event out so successfully that I had no recollection of it.

I suppose at first that sounds like a blessing: to forget the worst day of your life entirely. Nevertheless, I found it a heinous curse, since it meant poor Carlisle had been forced to explain to me what had happened to my darling child, and he had been forced to tell me once I was immortal and could forget nothing. Consequently, my memories of my first days as an immortal were saturated entirely with immense grief. The horrific fact that my child was dead while I lived on, coupled with my wild newborn emotions, made the pain almost unbearable. Poor Carlisle and Edward had barely known what to do with me, such was my hysteria at the loss of the only thing I had in the world. The next terrible admission—that I would be forever unable to bear children—made me inconsolable. I spent hours weeping, bemoaning the loss of my tears along with the loss of my children, both the one who was gone, and those who now never would be.

It was not the perfect start to a relationship but Carlisle had devoted his time to comforting me and, before we even realised what was happening, we fell in love. After that, I realised that there was something worth living for once more: my soul mate.

Unlike the death of my child, I remembered by pregnancy very well: the fear, the struggle to accept the concept that I was bringing a new life into the world, the determination to provide a good life for my baby, and most of all the love, the unbreakable connection we shared. I also remembered wishing there was someone I could talk to about it. I left my family behind when I left my husband; I doubted they would have approved of my actions anyway. My father in particular would have believed that marriage was a bond for life and that I should have stayed with my husband no matter what.

What would they have thought of mine and Carlisle's behaviour? We were unable to officially be married until my human husband had died and though we held our own private ceremony, with Edward officiating, we were technically living in sin for over two decades. Somehow, despite both our religious upbringings, we couldn't bring ourselves to care. Nothing seems to matter when you're in love. Nothing besides them.

Of course, Edward had managed to apply that backwards to himself and Bella, abstaining to protect not only her body but her soul. It was admirable, and I found myself incredibly grateful now that they had waited, if only because it made Bella's pregnancy easier to hide. She could remain secluded at our house without questions being asked or eyebrows raised, though we would most likely have to deal with Charlie at some point. What could we say to Bella's father?

Well, we would deal with that later. We had enough family traumas in this house without worrying about extended family.

Rosalie was now pacing up and down the living room, listening closely to the sounds of the shower in Edward's bathroom, always tensed to run upstairs and tear Bella away from him. The motion looked desperate as her feet carried her back and forth repeatedly; she would soon wear her path into the carpet. In contrast, Alice was curled up on the sofa where Bella had been, holding her head in her hands, as if in pain. To a human, she would have looked eerily unnatural as she moved not an inch.

"Alice?" I asked, my mothering instincts coming to the fore. I moved forward to sit next to her. "Are you alright?"

She blinked and uncurled herself. "Yes, I'm okay. It's just that I can't see the foetus, but I can see Bella, and the two of them combined just seem blurry. It hurts to watch them, but I'm so attuned to Bella that visions keep slipping through. Ugh!" she finished, and clapped her hands to her face again.

Upstairs, the shower cut off and Rosalie's breath caught for a second as she registered the change in sound. We all heard the towel rail squeak as Bella grabbed a towel and began to dry herself, and a set of footsteps echoed in perfect unison with Rosalie's. Edward, it seemed, was pacing too.

The sound of the bathroom door brushing the carpet emanated down the stairs, and suddenly Rosalie's pacing was unique. The closet door was opened and Alice smiled slightly despite herself. She had stocked Edward's closet with as least two rails of Bella's clothes, or more accurately, clothing for Bella. Of course, she had been steadily stockpiling clothes for Edward and Bella's new cottage for the past month or so as well, though I couldn't believe it wasn't full yet. Even with the absurd size of the closet, Alice had bought enough clothes to last several lifetimes. Her justification was that they had more than several lifetimes to go through. I supposed that made sense, though with Bella's future so unclear, I couldn't help but worry that Alice's reasoning no longer applied.

Suddenly, Rosalie was at my side. "Please can you go up now," she burst out. "She'll be decent by now, and I can't take it any longer!" She looked wild with desperation.

"Alright," I said soothingly. "Don't worry so much, Rose. Even if Edward does want to abort the child, I doubt he would want to hurt Bella that way."

I knew perfectly well that Edward could hear every word I was saying, and thinking, too. I hoped he agreed with me that operating on Bella without her express consent would do far more harm than good, both in the loss of her trust and possibly her mental stability; I knew all too well what the death of a child could do.

I patted Rose's arm and withdrew from the room. I moved at a human pace, wanting to give Edward and Bella a little warning. More Bella than Edward, since it would take her longer to prepare for my entrance. As I approached Edward's firmly closed door I heard them murmuring together. Neither of them mentioned the baby, knowing it would upset the other. Instead, they were discussing the clothes Alice had bought for Bella whilst they'd been away.

"It's ridiculous—she knows full well I'll never wear stilettos, even when I can actually balance in them."

Edward chuckled, though the sound was still strained. "I doubt it matters, bearing in mind she's provided enough ballet flats for a few millennia."

Bella giggled too. "I suppose. But it's not just the shoes—did you see that mini dress? I swear to you now that that particular excuse for a piece of clothing will never be found on my body. Plus, I doubt any of it will fit too much longer."

The following silence could have been cut through with only the sharpest of blades. I felt as much as heard it. Somewhere below me, I heard Jasper get up and leave. If it was that bad, I thought I should take that as my cue. I knocked softly on the door.

"Come in, Esme," Edward said quietly.

I entered to see Bella and Edward sitting together on the bed that Bella had previously scorned. Bella was looking down at her knees, obviously regretting her last sentence. Edward had turned to me as I opened the door but he left an arm draped protectively round his young wife's shoulders, carefully arranged so he was nowhere near her stomach, I noticed.

His eyelids fluttered shut as I made this observation and I guessed he hated himself for not being able to support her wishes. He nodded, almost imperceptibly. Bella, looking down, missed the gesture entirely.

_You'll be fine, _I told him. _You will get through this, as you have survived everything else. Together._

He smiled, but the expression in his eyes remained exactly the same. For a man who had previously never been one to show emotion, Edward had the most expressive eyes. I smiled back.

"Hello Esme," Bella said, looking up for the first time.

A single tear finished its journey down her cheek and landed loudly in her lap. Edward flinched as though branded.

"Hello Bella," I replied gently. "I'd like to talk to you for a while, if you're not too tired." I ran an eye over her pink pyjamas which were clearly Alice's idea.

"No, I'm fine," she insisted hastily.

Edward grimaced.

"Are you sure?" I asked her, concerned by Edward's reaction. "I wouldn't want to risk your health."

"Really, I'm fi—okay," she said.

"Good," I smiled. What on earth was wrong with the word 'fine'?

Edward shook his head, and got up to leave. "I'll be back in a while," he told her, and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead.

She smiled and let him go. As soon as the door closed, though, the smile dropped and her eyes screwed up for a second before she regained composure and her face smoothed out. She smiled again, this time apologetically.

"I never thought being home could be more stressful than those last couple of hours on the island," she sighed. "Not that I don't like being here," she added quickly.

I moved forward to take Edward's place on the bed. "Don't worry yourself about offending me, dear," I reassured her. "I know just how you feel."

She drew her legs up onto the bed and hugged her knees, though there was a noticeable gap between her thighs and her chest. Her stomach was swelling perceptibly.

Bella noticed too and lowered her knees to sit cross-legged. "It's so much to get used to," she breathed, bringing up a hand to caress her stomach.

"I know," I smiled. "I thought you might want to talk to someone who could empathise with you. Not completely, I realise, but I think I'm the closest you'll get."

"Yes. Thank you, Esme," she said.

"I'm afraid there's no escaping everybody hearing us," I warned her.

Her lips curved up slightly. "I'm aware of that. Unless they take a hint and leave for a while," she added, raising her voice slightly.

"No chance," Edward called, not from very far away, I noted.

"No way!" Rosalie shrieked.

We both giggled. "Well that was to be expected, I suppose," Bella sighed.

"Yes," I agreed.

There was a slight pause as both of us wondered where to start.

"So, how did you feel when you first found out… or guessed, I suppose… that you were pregnant?" I asked her.

"Kind of, um, numb, I think," Bella said, frowning as she remembered. "It just didn't _connect. _I was stuck thinking about the logistics of it, and the impossibility. But then my baby nudged me," she said and her whole face lit up. "Suddenly, I just loved him, and that was all that mattered."

I leant forward and carefully grasped her hands. "Isn't it wonderful? A whole new life inside you, doesn't it feel like a miracle?"

Her eyes sparkled with emotion and I could sense a kindred spirit. "Yes, but terrifying at the same time." Alarm sparked across her face as she realised Edward had heard this confession and she hastily continued. "I'm not scared for me, it's just the fear that I'm not… worthy, somehow. The idea of a child is amazing, but the idea of being a mother just feels alien. Incomprehensible. I can't get my head around it."

Her words evoked decades-old memories: my hand resting on my own warm, round stomach, terrified of the wonder of it all. The magnitude of the love I felt for my child scared me. I hadn't previously been able to imagine that my heart could possibly be capable of feeling such emotion.

"It'll all make sense when you hold your child for the first time," I promised, stroking her hands with my thumbs.

"But what if I can't?" Bella whispered, staring desperately into my eyes.

I mentally chastised myself for not considering this. Bella and Rosalie had discussed the possibility earlier, I suddenly remembered, but I had not been paying much attention, distracted as I was by the violent legends of vampire childbirth.

"Bella, I'm sure it will all be fine," I lied gently. "Carlisle will be able to perform a Caesarean quite easily; there's no reason why you should have to be changed until you're ready."

She smiled then, a wry smile. "But will I ever be ready?" she asked rhetorically. "If the baby has blood then I won't be able to be around him for a year. An entire year… How long before I can stand that separation?"

I shook my head. "I don't know, dear, but I don't think you should worry so. The baby will be at least half vampire; maybe the scent will be different. I know your scent is changing slightly."

"Is it?" she asked, fascinated. "How?"

"You smell a bit like us," I smiled, glad to have diverted her thoughts. "Just a little, and most would miss it since you're in such close proximity with us anyway, but maybe it means that the baby's scent won't bother you."

Her eyes closed for a second as she let my words reassure her and her whole body relaxed slightly. Another tear trickled out from under one translucent eyelid.

She felt that, and reached up to brush it away. "I can't seem to stop crying at the moment," she said, though her voice held steady.

"That's perfectly normal," I replied, gratefully returning to safer ground. "I was an emotional wreck for the first three months of my pregnancy. My family grew very impatient with me before I left."

My daughter's eyebrows furrowed in confusion and I realised she had no knowledge of what had transpired all those years ago.

"I'm sorry, I forgot you didn't know the whole story," I apologised.

"What…" she began to ask, then bit her lip, afraid of upsetting me, no doubt.

"No, it's alright, you can ask," I said, smiling to show that my words were truth.

"What happened? Why did you leave?" she asked obediently.

"Well, my husband was…" I began, confident after so many years, then faltering only a few words into my explanation. After all, I had aged less than a year since those times. "He was not a good man. He treated me… very badly once we became man and wife. I can't remember much of it, thank heavens, but I do remember that he became a completely different person as soon as we were married."

Bella's eyes were wide and horrified as she listened. None of the family had told her anything of this.

"My father died only a year or so before my marriage, and my mother had never got over becoming a widow. She believed more than anything else that a wife's duty was to her husband and her advice to me was to submit to his every need. A suggestion which I found very difficult to stomach.

"But I tried. It was a different time back then and a divorce was not an option. Just walking out would shame my family, and anyway, where would I go? No, I had to stay, grit my teeth, and take whatever was inflicted on me.

"Then I found I was pregnant.

"For three months I was distraught. I could only pity the child that I was bringing into this dreadful world. I could only contemplate in horror what awaited this baby at the hands of my husband, but I felt powerless to prevent it."

The tears were running freely down Bella's cheeks now. I moved closer and wrapped her in a hug. She seemed thinner than I remembered, despite the bump, where I now covered her hand with my own.

"And then he nudged me. Suddenly everything was clear and I simply _had _to save my baby. I didn't even think about it, I just packed a small suitcase and left while my husband was out drinking. I didn't leave a note or any indication as to where I might be going. I took nothing from my marital home, not even a little money; I couldn't bring myself to steal. I walked for two hours that night before a kindly farmer gave me a lift north. I told him I was going to stay with a cousin and that my husband had died in the war, leaving me pregnant. It was a realistic story and I stuck to it.

"It wasn't until I had begged lodgings for the night that I realised exactly what I'd managed to do, namely escape. And all for my little baby, Sean, I named him. I set up a whole new life for us, securing a job as a teacher, renting a room with my wages, becoming a whole new person for him. It scared me sometimes: how far I was willing to go for him, but I knew beyond doubt that he was worth it."

I pulled back and cautiously brushed my daughter's tears away, always careful not to exert too much pressure. There was a pause as she waited for her ragged breathing to quieten and gentle before speaking.

"Oh, Esme, that must have been…" she trailed off. I waited for a second, but she smiled wanly and said, "I don't know what to say. I don't have the words to describe it."

"I've always found words a disappointment," I noted. "There's never one to say exactly what you mean."

"Mmm," Bella agreed, and then yawned.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I apologised. "I only intended to speak to you for a few minutes. I think I got carried away."

"No, that's okay," Bella assured me. "It's really nice to know more about you. And I'm glad that you felt the same way as me about your baby. I thought I was going mad when I realised I loved him as much as Edward."

I laughed. "That's ironic. You see, I thought I was going mad when I realised I loved Carlisle as much as I loved Sean."

She smiled wearily, but her face became pensive. I watched her as she thought until something occurred to me.

"Bella?" Her eyes flicked up to my face. "When you refer to your child, you use a masculine pronoun. Simple curiosity, but why?"

She blushed, just slightly. "It's irrational," she said, "but on the island I was dreaming of a child, a little boy with…" Her voice grew quieter. "With green eyes. I didn't even suspect I was pregnant, then, but I was already dreaming of a child I knew I simply had to protect."

Carlisle had told Bella that Edward used to have green eyes on the day of her eighteenth birthday. My husband had discussed that conversation with me that night after Edward had informed us of his decision to leave, and I remembered him telling me how Bella had seemed so enamoured of this detail. Poor Bella and her fateful birthday. We would have to make sure this year was the best she had ever had.

First, though, we had to get her through this pregnancy, however long it might take and however it might end.

Bella's thoughts seemed to be in tune with mine. Her eyes remained fixed on the southern wall of glass as she asked "What is the probability of me getting through this, human, with my little baby boy—or girl—safe and well?"

So my words hadn't truly reassured her then. No, Bella was far too bright to be placated.

My own voice was as deathly quiet as hers when I answered her. "I honestly have no idea, sweetheart," I confessed. "Even Carlisle can't begin to guess."

Bella acknowledged this with a slight nod of the head. "And do we have any idea how long the pregnancy will take if it goes to full term, or nearly?"

"We were discussing this earlier," I answered, glad to be on safer ground. "Since we obviously aren't following the normal timescale, we were thinking of other ways to measure how advanced you are."

She shifted round to face me with curious eyes. "Did you come up with one?"

I smiled. "Yes, namely how big you are. Usually, a woman gains one centimetre for each week of pregnancy, so at full term you would be forty centimetres around your stomach."

Something akin to relief blossomed on my daughter's face. "I had been worried about that. If we couldn't see the foetus, how would we know if it was viable... Though I guess we don't know if I'll follow the forty centimetre rule either," she realised and her expression clouded again.

"Don't be so pessimistic," I chided her gently. "We'll take some measurements tomorrow and then we'll have a far better idea."

She blinked away the suppressed emotion. "Thank you, Esme," she said.

"Now don't start that," I lightly scolded her. "No one can deny that we're family now, and you shouldn't have to thank me."

She blushed, just slightly, and yawned.

"You really must get some sleep now," I said, glancing at the delicate gold wristwatch I wore. Time had little meaning for me, but much for Bella.

"Mmm," she agreed sleepily, and slipped under the gold comforter she sat on. I stood to let her settle herself, and she rolled onto her side in the loose shape of a capital G, brushing her hair off her neck to bare the fragile skin there. I pushed the familiar burning sensation away with ease and retreated to the door.

"Goodnight, my daughter," I whispered.

"Night, Mom," she murmured, and I smiled wholeheartedly.

Though it was rare that any of my 'children' called me Mom, it always made my silent heart swell with joy and pride when they indulged me with the title. I left the room and braced myself to deal with whichever of those children would attack me first.

"Interesting choice of words," Edward said from beside me.

I prevented myself from jumping using long years of experience.

"How much of that was for my benefit?" he asked me quietly.

I sighed. Not bothering to speak aloud, I mentally admitted that it had been a large part of my intention to let him know exactly how far a mother would go for her child. He followed the wordless direction of my thoughts as I compared myself to Bella. A question sparked and he answered before I could even decide whether or not to ask it.

"No, I wasn't aware of her dreams. She said she was having nightmares about the Volturi, but she never mentioned a child. Probably because she thought I wouldn't change her if she seemed at all maternal," he added in answer to the inevitable _why?_

Something else occurred to me and he mutely shook his head.

I frowned, just slightly. "But you were aware of my feelings for both Sean and Carlisle. Had you not suspected that she might feel the same?"

"Not until she mentioned it," he whispered.

"Oh, Edward," I said, but he drew away.

"I had best go to Bella," he muttered, and slipped back into his—their—room.

I sighed. I could only pray now that Edward could reconcile himself to the reality of this pregnancy, and that we would all come out of this safe and well. Including Bella's little baby.

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A/N: Next chapter is Carlisle's POV, researching and speculating on the outcome of this pregnancy. This one is all ready to go as soon as I've typed it up, and it's a bit shorter so it shouldn't take long! Though my exam timetable's just come through…


	6. Fact of the matter

A/N: Carlisle, his research and hypothesising, and some unnerving concerns from his children. Poor Carlisle; he is the oldest and unofficial head of the coven so everyone automatically turns to him. When he doesn't have the answers, how does he react?

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**CPOV**

"They call us Libishomen in Argentina, too," Jasper commented.

Alice had found him again only ten minutes ago, though he was still trying to ignore Edward's emotional turmoil. I thought Bella's surrender to sleep might have been a welcome relief to him too. Upon gaining Jasper, though, I immediately lost Emmett's help; he had gone hunting under the pretext that he hadn't been expecting Bella to be human for so long. Everyone saw through him; Emmett did not do well when it came to sensitive subjects and tense relationships.

"Check any Argentinean records then," I advised. "It's worth a look, anyway."

It was nearing dusk on the day of Edward and Bella's return and our research was becoming more and more fruitless. After Jasper had come across the corresponding legends of childbirth, our findings had dwindled spectacularly. The one thing that kept turning up was that the product of such a demonic union was invariably a monstrous demon itself. I took comfort from the lack of evidence to support this claim, and from the inevitable addendum: that all immortals were evil. If we could break the mould, maybe this impossible child could too.

Another thing we were severely lacking information on was the pregnancy itself. One account said a pregnant woman was forced to flee, but for what reasons we just didn't know. There were stories of 'infected' women being killed before the pregnancy could develop far, but I doubted all of these unfortunates were, in fact, pregnant by an immortal. The sheer unfeasibility of the conception threw shadow over every myth.

I shut the hefty cover of yet another dusty tome and returned it to the wall of books in my study. I was about to pull another from the shelf when Alice slipped into the room. Grateful for the distraction, I turned to face her.

"Are you feeling alright, Alice?" I asked her as she went to lay a hand on Jasper's shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm kind of getting used to it now," she said with a sigh. "That's not what I came to tell you, though."

"What's wrong?" Jasper asked, evidently feeling some strong emotion from her.

"Nothing yet," she assured him, a typical Alice answer.

"But?" I prompted.

"Aro got the wedding announcement," she began.

Her words had my full attention now. "And will he wait?"

Aro had made the decision to check on Bella whilst the newlyweds had been on their honeymoon. A small panic had ensued until Esme had come up with the bright idea of sending a wedding announcement in the hope that Aro would postpone his visit. Naturally, he had not planned to come personally, but to send a few of his closest henchmen, including Demetri, Felix and Jane. This was a prospect that had severely alarmed the family, and though Alice assured us that Bella would be changed soon, we had no guarantee that Aro's scouts would not arrive before the couple's return. Had Edward and Bella returned to find the Volturi's delegates here, Bella's life would have been seriously endangered.

Of course, Alice was now unable to tell us when Bella would be changed, whether it would be during a traumatic delivery or not at all if the child was born with blood, since Bella would most definitely not want to miss an entire year of her child's development. Hence why it was so important now to avoid a visit from the Volturi.

"They'll wait," Alice said, and I exhaled in relief.

Time was what we needed. An interesting state of affairs: immortals needing more time. Such an abundance of time, and yet never enough. Three and a half centuries of existence had taught me that time moved in nebulous ways, and despite its regularity of minutes, hours, months, and years, it was immeasurable in terms of how long it actually was.

"But," she continued, "I'm certain he'll still come. Within six months or so."

I tensed again. "The pregnancy is advanced to such a stage that we should be able to conceal it from them, if they leave it another two months or so," I muttered. What I wouldn't give for an ultrasound that could penetrate vampire skin...

"But how can we hide a child?" Alice said, her eyes flashing. "Aro will expect a personal visit from her, and he'll hear everything in our thoughts. We can't just refuse not to touch him, and he wants a full account of her transformation."

"He can't hear Bella," Jasper reminded us. "She could go alone."

"Edward wouldn't let her," Alice countered immediately.

"I don't think he has a choice," I admitted. Much as I hated to send Bella, who was after all so young, alone to face the halls of bloodthirsty vampires, I could see no other option. Aro would consider it a severe discourtesy should I refuse to touch him, and would immediately become suspicious. Esme and the children did not benefit from the same relationship I shared with Aro and would be in serious danger of imprisonment or worse should they refuse to touch him. Whoever went, Aro would extort our thoughts from us, with the utmost courtesy and the utmost discourtesy all mixed in the same breath. Such was the power of our unofficial king; nothing was an obstacle to him. Bella was the one impenetrable exception.

"Of course, this is assuming Bella retains her unreadable mind after being changed," I observed out loud.

Jasper looked to Alice, but she shook her head. "I can't see her at all that far forward."

"Do you know how Aro would react to such a pregnancy?" I asked Alice.

"Haven't a clue," she replied flatly. "He doesn't know about it so he hasn't decided what to do about it."

I descended wearily into the chair behind my desk. From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the elaborate mural I had created of the Volturi brothers, nighttime patrons of the arts, and royals of the immortals.

"Marcus wouldn't care," Jasper predicted. "He'd either leave it alone or go along with the majority vote. My guess is leave it alone; he does have some compassion, though he's never got over his grief, I don't think. Caius is another matter. He'd probably vote to kill the child just because it's different."

I had never grown close to Marcus. His mate, Didyme, had died so many years ago, for obscure and inexplicable reasons, and a large part of him had died with her. What remained was condemned forever to witness others' relationships, forced to watch what he had lost, every second of every day. His talent forbid him to ever forget. Perhaps, I often thought, his talent was the greatest curse known to sentient life. It drove him almost mad. He clung to sanity with the art of depression, of feeling nothingness every day and night. Very little caused a reaction in Marcus. Alice had told me he had been surprised at the strength of Bella and Edward's bond; he would remember that, and perhaps he might see fit to leave us alone. If however, he decided to go with a majority vote, as he did ninety-nine hundredths of the time, we would have a larger problem on our hands.

Caius had distrusted me for centuries. He simply could not comprehend my stubborn refusal to even try human blood, and became very angry on the one occasion that I dared try to convince him to try the alternative. To him, my family were close to political protestors or renegades, and only our persistently quiet lifestyle gave him reason to leave us well enough alone. A breach of the secrecy rule had convinced him, at least, that we were dangerous. I was certain, though Edward never brought himself to confirm my theory, that he would have killed Bella right there and then last spring if the decision had been left to him.

"So it all rests with Aro," Alice summed up. "Not a man I would trust."

"He has an allegiance to me," I argued. "That might sway him."

"But his morals are… questionable," Jasper added.

"No, I think he will follow what he thinks is right," I defended.

Alice looked at me sceptically. "Did Edward tell you what he was thinking that time with Bella?"

She didn't say the word 'suicide', for which I was grateful; no one liked being reminded of the circumstances of that particular encounter with the Volturi.

"Only the essentials," I answered. Edward especially preferred not to speak of that time.

Alice nodded. "Well, while we were there, he warned me that Aro desperately wanted me, Edward and Bella for the guard."

"Bella?" I asked in surprise.

"Aro thinks she could be useful if she remains impervious to certain gifts."

I digested this information distastefully. To find three of my six children were wanted for the royal guard was not a pleasant concept.

"The only reason he didn't kill Edward right there and then for betraying us was because he was interested in him, me, and this strange little human girl who defied Edward's power and was so special that she could drive an immortal to ask for death. He was very annoyed that she died before he could meet her."

"And then he met her," Jasper said. He and Alice exchanged a worried glance.

I shook my head. "It's one thing to want you to join the guard, but quite another to do anything untoward in order to achieve that."

"Anyway, that's why he's so keen to check on Bella so early, I'm sure of it," Alice said, not accepting my argument.

"She's twice as valuable now," Jasper murmured.

"How so?" I asked.

"The child," said Alice simply. "Aro will be so interested in the child."

"That's not all," Jasper said with a glance at the ceiling and a pained expression. Evidently Edward did not like what Jasper was thinking. "Have you considered the fact that the Volturi presumably have no more knowledge of this than us? What if they assume Bella is not only unique in bearing a vampire's child, but in her ability and willingness to do so?"

Alice gasped, with a quick, light inhalation. "You don't mean…" she broke off, daring him to say it.

He nodded. "If they assume that no other woman can, or even consider others a less practical option, then they may want her to replicate the feat."

Alice remained staring at her husband as she continued. "Or maybe Edward would be the more valuable. Who else could maintain that much control?"

"If they threatened one…" Jasper began, with another pained glance upwards.

"The other would do it," finished Alice.

The pair gazed at each other in utter horror for a moment before I gathered my composure and interceded.

"I think you're getting a little ahead of yourselves. There is still the distinct possibility that they will decide to leave well enough alone."

They ignored me. "The best thing to do would be to change her as soon as possible. Just in case," Jasper said.

"What about Edward, though?" fretted Alice.

Jasper grimaced. "I don't know."

"Aro wouldn't force him, even if he did like the idea," I interjected, sucked into their conversation despite myself.

Their heads snapped towards me, realising that at least a part of me thought theirs was a valid concern. I couldn't completely deny it.

"I hope you're right," Alice said softly.

"Of course, he may want to study the child," Jasper said bluntly.

This, I could not argue with. When I had stayed with the Volturi, I had realised that Aro was of an acquisitive nature, and what he loved most to gain was knowledge. He was a genius, and little excited him more than something that made him think. Bella and her child presented a tremendous conundrum that he would indubitably love to solve.

"But Bella and Rosalie… and Edward and Emmett… oh, none of us would let him get away with just taking it away!" Alice exclaimed, her voice suddenly raised again. "And then some or all of us will get killed trying to keep the child out of Italy! Volterra is no place for a baby."

I could see in my memories exactly why Volterra would be the worst possible place to bring up a child. The crowds of tourists brought in to be drained dry, the immortals taking their time to select the sweetest smelling prey, the perpetual atmosphere of blood and battle, the hidden layers of meaning and insult behind each barbed comment… Volterra was a very adult world, and one I would not want my grandchild to experience. Especially if that grandchild was born with blood in its veins.

"Perhaps Aro will refrain from interfering," I reiterated. "Or maybe I can persuade him to do so. Or even if Aro does want to study the child, he can do so via our thoughts. The baby can stay here."

"I wish I could see!" Alice exploded.

A tidal wave of calm flooded the room and the angry spark left her eyes. Jasper put his hand on her shoulder, barely having to stretch despite his seated position. Alice slumped, as gracefully as ever, onto his knee.

"Thanks," she muttered. "It's just so frustrating. We don't _know _anything."

"No," I agreed. "We don't."

As a doctor, I worked within the parameters of science, hard and fast fact. As a Christian, my belief in God was unshakable. But in this impossible situation I had nothing to work from save obscure mythology and my own predictions. I could only theorise what we were working with, only guess at what might occur. The fact of the matter was that there _were_ no facts for us to word with and, though I tried my best not to let Jasper or Edward know, I was scared.

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A/N: Next chapter is Rosalie again, but I am under so much stress at the moment that it's coming along very, very slowly. I'm sorry, but what with GCSEs, drama, family feuds and a whole lot more, my life is hectic. Therefore I'm not going to set myself a time limit for this, seeing as I didn't meet the last one.

UPDATE: I got yet another amazingly useful review from Angeliss (I adore you and your constructive comments. No, seriously) and so the next chapter will not be Rosalie, but Alice, to explain her rather benevolent attitude towards the baby, since I know why that is but you don't, and that's not fair.


	7. Absence of future

A/N: As I said earlier, I got another brill review from Angeliss which inspired me to write this chapter. Alice's feelings on the situation, and a couple of observations I've made about her role in Twilight. I wrote this in a single evening (and I went out tonight!) so I take full responsibility for typos. If you want to leave a review with mistakes, that's fine with me.

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**APOV**

Half an hour later, Esme and I were in the cottage, clearing out the guest bedroom. I thought it was overly optimistic to be doing so, after all, we didn't know if Bella would make it, let alone the kid, but it was something to do. I felt like I needed to be busy tonight, to make myself feel just a teensy bit less ineffective. It was kind of working. Well, no it wasn't, but there you are. Sometimes you just can't help your feelings. Even if your husband happens to be empathic. Typical, that. He's empathic and I'm still feeling rubbish, and I can see the future, but I can't tell if my sister will live past daybreak!

Another slat was removed from the double bed I had so painstakingly picked out, and I tossed it onto the growing pile of firewood outside the window. Maybe it was a bit wasteful, seeing as Bella and Edward wouldn't need the heat, but you couldn't have a fairytale cottage without a tiny picturesque fireplace, or so Esme insisted. I could see her point; it fitted in so well with the general style. Whatever the general style was; you couldn't quite put a name to it. Maybe it would be a new genre, and we could name it "Once upon a time". Or "Once upon a dream"? That would be kind of cute.

"Do you want the duvet cover?" Esme asked as she peeled it away from the fluffy duvet. "You and Rose could make something with it, it's quite nice material."

It was. The theme for this room had been the blue room on the island, but the soft furnishings here were the exact shade of blue that Edward loved on Bella. A few days ago, I would happily have fallen on the cloth and begun working out which hemline would accentuate Bella's legs best, but now…

"Rosalie'll only want to make baby clothes with it," I muttered. Realising how depressing that sounded I immediately perked up and added, "We should leave the curtains. They go so well with the walls, and plus, if you get rid of them, that totally erases the whole blue theme, and—"

Esme put down the feather pillow she had just extracted from the luxury pillowcase and just looked at me as I rambled. I knew exactly what she was doing, and eventually I trailed off.

"What?" I asked, a bit rudely, I supposed. I was a bit short tempered at the moment.

"Are you okay?"

"Yep. Sure. I'm fine," I said. Not too convincingly, obviously, because Esme smiled wryly.

"Just like everybody else in the family, then," she said.

I didn't reply, but smiled somewhat sheepishly. "Who else is denying it?"

"Oh, just Bella. And Rosalie. And Emmett. And Carlisle. Jasper too. In fact, the only one who's being completely honest about his feelings is Edward. Quite a role reversal, don't you think?"

I laughed shortly. "Who'd've thought ten years ago that it would be Edward being open about his emotional state in the middle of a family crisis?"

"And who would have thought that a girl stuck in her teens would be so good at changing the subject."

It wasn't a question; I acknowledged the statement with a grimace. Damn, she'd noticed.

"I'm hardly important right now," I said, trying to avert the conversation.

"You're just as important as everyone else," Esme countered. "You're all my children."

At the word 'children' I felt my lips twist slightly as my expression contorted. I really wanted no reminders of the current situation, though that was a very stupid thing to wish for considering I still had a splitting headache and was creating a nursery right at that moment.

"I know how you feel," Esme said. I thought it was Bella who was too perceptive?

"Go on then," I said lightly. "Surprise me."

Esme sighed dramatically, but launched into what sounded like a well-rehearsed speech. "You are terrified out of your mind about Bella, not helped by her hindrance of your sight. You don't understand why on earth she's being so stubborn. You agree with Edward—it's far too dangerous—but you can see where Rosalie is coming from. You think they're both being a bit extreme in their behaviour. You're scared about what this whole situation is doing to your family. You're worried about the Volturi's reaction. You're slightly jealous that Bella ran to Rosalie for help and not you. And to top it off, you're really wishing aspirin worked on vampires."

My jaw was hanging open by this stage. How on earth did she pick all of that out of my behaviour?

With the same strange omniscience, Esme guessed what I was thinking. "It's a mothers' thing."

My mouth closed and my teeth met with an audible snap. "What happened to 'my parents don't understand me'?"

"It's a commonly believed lie. A parent generally knows exactly what's going on in their child's head at any one given moment, though I do feel I have a slight advantage seeing as you don't grow and I've known you for half a century."

"Good point," I frowned. Suddenly, Edward's talent didn't seem so impressive.

"So anyway, talk, Alice. Forget that everyone's concentrating on Bella. Just be selfish; I think you need to for a moment."

She waited, but I couldn't think where to begin. "You do know I feel really self-conscious right now?" I said. "And that doesn't happen a lot for me."

She chuckled. "No, it doesn't, does it? But usually you're not the centre of attention. Usually, you're at the side of the stage. A support act, so to speak."

"How d'you mean?" I asked.

"Well, you spent the last two months organising Edward and Bella's wedding. Before that it was Bella's graduation party. Even when we found out who you were as a human, it was overshadowed by Edward's depression. Before we moved here, you organised wedding after wedding for Rosalie and Emmett and looked after Jasper around humans. You organised parties for Mother's Day each year, you tried to get Edward and Tanya together, you were always working for other people."

I cocked my head to the side, thinking. "I've never thought about it like that," I said, running through my life.

"Now, forget about everyone else for a minute. How do you really feel about this baby?"

I flumped on the floor and resolved to just speak—something I'd never really had a problem with before. Silence, that was difficult, but talking was sometimes rather too easy. So off I went.

"I think Bella's an idiot for keeping the foetus. I don't see how it's worth it. 'Course, I know that it's that strange maternal instinct which I've missed out on. But I just think either she doesn't know what she's doing or her hormones are driving her mad, because just look at Edward! He's so angry and scared and jealous and upset and she could stop that in a second by just getting rid of the foetus. She's risking all our lives via the Volturi. What on earth is she thinking?

"Then there's Rosalie. She's so eager to get this baby that she'll risk everyone's lives too. But I think Edward might've got it wrong too, because there's still a chance that she'll be okay. He should try and accept her side of the story just a bit more, and I'm glad you said all those things to Bella so he would know. I was listening with him. He did the right thing by saying we'll wait a few days, I reckon, but I'm just so scared. I don't know _anything_ about what's going to happen! I hate not knowing."

I stopped for a second. That was probably the most negative speech I had ever made in my entire lifetime. Or existence. I didn't really have a problem calling it a life, unlike the others, since I'd never known anything else.

Esme nodded. "What about the baby itself? How do you feel towards it?"

My forehead wrinkled as I considered. "I don't really know. I can't really think of it as a person at the moment. When do foetuses gain thought anyway? But I don't blame _it _for anything. Ish. I guess I'm being realistic about it—everyone's going to love it when it's born. Probably I will too. The novelty of a new person and all that. But it's putting us in so much _danger_. Mixed bag, I guess. Like when I was talking to Carlisle and Jasper earlier, I was so focussed on the Volturi being a threat that I began to think of it as a victim in the future. That's me confusing my tenses again, but you know what I'm like. Plus Jazz had a tight rein on my emotions. I was so stressed. So stressed, in fact, that I broke through once—went a bit mad. Ugh."

Esme was smiling now. "When you were talking to Carlisle and Jazz, I thought you sounded very protective. Maybe you haven't missed out on the maternal instinct."

"I don't know about that," I disagreed. "I wasn't thinking about it like a child, more like something that everyone else would love. You know I said everyone would fight for it, well, I think everyone would fight for it because of each other. Edward for Bella, Emmett for Rosalie, me for Edward and Bella and Jasper for me. It's only you, Bella, Rose and Carlisle who would really care about the child that much, but we're all so close that we couldn't just let you fight alone."

"I think you'll be surprised how much you end up caring," Esme predicted.

"If it survives. And if Bella does. If Bella dies and it survives, how do you think everyone will feel towards it then? How do you think Edward will feel about his own kid?"

A sigh slid from Esme's lips. "I don't want to predict. Maybe he can learn to love it. All I can do is pray we won't have to see that."

"Esme, I'm scared."

"So am I. So is everyone."

"And who's there for you?" I asked. "Who's giving you the opportunity to just rant?" On impulse, I flitted forward and gave her a hug. "From what I can tell, being a mother doesn't make you immune to everything."

"No, it doesn't sweetie," Esme said. "But I've done this before, or near enough. And I can trust Carlisle to support me and I'll support him."

"I wish it was over," I said, then immediately reconsidered. "No, I don't. I don't know how it's going to end, so maybe I should be making the best of the time we've got."

I broke away and a growl of frustration escaped my throat, followed immediately by a groan of pain.

Esme ran her hand through my hair. "Did you just look into Bella's future?"

I nodded, grimacing. "Yes, because I was thinking about how this was going to end. It's instinct. Damn instincts."

That summed up my feelings pretty well actually. Damn instincts. Get rid of the maternal instinct then we'd never have this problem in the first place and so we wouldn't have to deal with it. But if that meant we lost Esme…

Why couldn't life be simple? Why couldn't I just see the future?

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A/N: Right, I'm back on track now. Rosalie's chapter next, and apologies for length of time. I haven't done any homework tonight!! My drama teacher is going to murder me. And my maths teacher. And French. Why do I get so addicted to writing Alice?


	8. Waiting for dawn to break

A/N: This is Rosalie's point of view of the night after Bella and Edward's return. Since it was written before the last chapter, it kind of overlaps. It's happening simultaneously, and spans the entire night, rather than ten minutes.

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**RPOV**

So far, it was all going to plan. Bella was home, under my protection, determined to keep the baby, and the rest of the family had agreed. Yes, it was all going perfectly to plan.

Well. Almost. Not quite.

I hadn't bargained on quite this much resistance from Edward. I had been quietly sure that he would come round when he saw this was what Bella wanted. He so loved to give her things; wouldn't his acceptance be the greatest gift he could presently give her? As it was, he had only agreed begrudgingly, and if her health deteriorated in the slightest, I was now sure he would retract that agreement. Evidently, I had overestimated him and what he would do for Bella.

The next flaw in my plan was Bella's fragile body. Why did she have to be so damnably human? If her body failed, the baby didn't have any protection and I highly doubted it was viable at this stage. Then again, it might be, but I didn't want to take any chances. I was limited in my ability to correct this flaw, but I would do everything I could to preserve Bella's body, even down to letting her sleep with Edward beside her. Of course, that was under the stipulation that I remained in very close range. Like sitting with my back against the bedroom door, poised to spring up and tear him off her.

That was where I was right now. Seemingly relaxed, my head lolling to the side and my blonde curls cascading silkily over my shoulder, I remained tense and alert for the tiniest sound. Several times Bella's pulse would flutter, her breathing would quicken and I would leap up, my hand resting instantaneously on the door handle, and then Edward would breathe, dully, "she's dreaming". I would listen for a second more, then slide back down and resume my position of less than five seconds ago. Every time my thoughts returned to the third troublesome factor in my plan.

The Volturi. What on earth could I do about the Volturi? It was a question I hadn't been able to answer and so I'd skipped over it in these last few days. Jasper and Alice's morbid speculation, though, had thrown the issue into sharp focus and I could see that this was a problem of far greater magnitude than I had previously thought.

I had always expected the brothers to want a visit from Bella, or to visit her, and I had come to the same conclusion as Jasper: it was out of the question that the Volturi come here, so we would have to go to them, and since only Bella was unreadable, she would have to go alone. I knew we'd need a good cover story for our absence, and we'd have a problem convincing Edward to let her do this, but I had hoped we could reach a compromise. What I hadn't thought of was what would happen if the Volturi found out about the child. Alright, of course I'd thought of it. My mind had simply refused to see the potential consequences.

To take the child away from me! Whether it was to kill it or to study it Alice was right, I would fight tooth and nail to prevent that. Never would a child be more protected than this one; I would run to the corners of the earth with it and woe betide any who sought to part us. I pushed the 'what if's away. They wouldn't help in the slightest.

But would they try to use Bella as a breeder? The idea was disgusting, repugnant when phrased like that, but… wasn't that essentially what I was doing? Of course I wouldn't take the baby away from Bella (unless it was to protect it) and I was doing this for Bella as much as for myself.

No, that was a lie. I _was _doing this for Bella, but far more for my own sake. Far, far more. And so I could understand anyone who would do the same. I could empathise with prospective monsters so well that I wasn't quite able to convince myself that I wouldn't do exactly the same thing, and the only reason I shied away from it now was that Bella was my sister by marriage and Edward my brother by a mutual agreement. I owed them the love and respect that family necessitated and as such I wouldn't be able to bear seeing either of them violated in such a way. Maybe I didn't love Bella like I should, like a true sister, but I certainly cared enough about her not to want _that _for her, and as much as Edward antagonised me I couldn't even begin to think that using him in that way was acceptable.

The night wore on; Carlisle and Jasper traversed the murky legends of Argentina, Peru, Chile… different languages buzzed through the house, translations, debates on how _this _word should be interpreted or _that _phrase should be read. Alice and Esme took themselves off to the little cottage to clear out a room for the nursery. Bella slept with Edward's arms around her and I sat outside their door, listening. The tedium of the tension held me captive and unmoving for hours.

A couple of hours before dawn, the monotony was broken when Emmett returned. I heard his muted thud as he landed heavily over the river and followed the pattern of his footsteps as he approached the house. His tempo slowed upon entering; he was probably trying to keep quiet for Bella. He had always liked her.

"Emmett," I called quietly.

I didn't have anything in particular that I needed to say to him, I just needed _him_. I hadn't spoken to him properly since the day of the phone call; I was so desperate to keep my plans a secret, and since Bella returned I hadn't left her side.

He was by my side in an instant, leaping up the stairs with a grace that was so endearingly disproportionate to his size and stature. He checked slightly when he saw me.

"What are you doing?" he asked, confusedly.

I sighed. "Listening for Bella," I stated, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. In my opinion, it was.

"Oh."

Gently he slid down the wall and sat next to me. One muscular arm wrapped around my waist as I shifted to lean my head on his shoulder. I could feel my entire body relax at his proximity. The most comforting thing in the world was Emmett's arms around me; the greatest advantage of having someone who loved you was being held.

From the other side of the door came a muffled gasp and all thoughts of comfort were lost. I was standing without even thinking, tearing myself from Emmett's grasp.

"She's alright, Rosalie," Edward muttered wearily. He sounded exasperated.

"I am exasperated," he whispered in response to my errant thought. "I wouldn't stoop so low as to attack her in her sleep."

_But I'm not taking any chances, _I thought. _I'm staying right here._

Stubbornly, I sat down again. Emmett instantly had his arms around me, but I was irritated now. I didn't move out of his embrace but neither did I melt into it as I had before. After ten minutes or so, though, with no disturbances, I let out an abrupt sigh and nestled into my husband's chest.

"Sorry," I muttered.

"What for?" he asked softly. Trust Emmett to make me spell it out.

"For being so… standoffish these last few days. I've barely even spoken to you."

"That's alright, babe," he cooed, and tightened his arms around me.

I allowed myself a small smile. He was so easily placated.

"Do you think I'm doing the right thing, though?" I asked. "Honestly?"

It occurred to me that, excepting the horrendous events of last spring, this was the weakest and least arrogant I had probably appeared in years. Decades. Since recovering from the traumatic circumstances of my changing.

Emmett didn't answer at once, thinking it through. Usually he would placate me with flattery when faced with such a question, but this was by no means a usual situation or my normal state of mind.

"Really, honestly, I don't know," he finally said. "I know why you're doing it, and I get that, but I also get why Edward's scared."

There was another pause as he mulled the scenario over. Both of us ignored Edward's presence less than five metres away, used to having all of our conversations overheard by everyone else.

"I think in the end it's Bella's choice. It's her body and her baby, so if this is what she wants, that's fine by me."

Emmett was nothing if not honest; Edward always said that he said what he thought and thought what he said. A relieved sigh drifted from my lips in a gush of cool air; how many times had I sighed tonight?

"You know, there are times when I really do love you," I quipped, giving him a peck on the cheek.

"Really?" Emmett chuckled, reacting to my change in mood. "That implies you don't love me all of the time."

I didn't bother answering but captured his lips in a kiss and let my body do the talking. For a moment or two I forgot why I was kissing him, why I was so grateful, why we were leant against a hard wooden door rather than on a soft feather bed; none of those things mattered. The world shrank to hold just Emmett and myself for a few blissful seconds as his lips moved hungrily against mine, the skin of the universe wrapping around our entwined forms and obliterating entirely the vexation that was existence. Unfortunately, the vexation had other ideas.

From behind Edward's door came a croaky yawn, and the click of rested joints echoed in my ears. The mattress creaked with the tiniest possible noise as a body shifted and my eyelids flew open to admit images of a world I longed to defy I tore my lips from Emmett's and leapt to my feet in one fluid movement; I was through the door in another.

The scene that presented itself seemed fairly harmless but I swept the room with my gaze several times just in case. Bella's hair was rumpled in a tangled cloud resting on Edward's chest, her eyes hampered by the remnants of sleep as she blinked at the sudden disturbance. The gold comforter had slipped past her shoulders as she shifted. Edward's face was impeccably composed, utterly blank, quintessentially dead. His eyes flashed as I thought this.

_I can't control what I think, _I hissed mentally.

His eyes narrowed a fraction of a millimetre but he declined to comment and instead focussed on Bella as her tired brain caught up to where she was.

"Morning, Rosalie," she said, in that slightly hoarse morning voice. How I envied her ability to blank out the universe for hour after blissful hour.

I relaxed slightly upon having Bella safely in my field of vision again, allowing me to smile at her in what I hoped was a reassuring way.

"Good morning, Bella," I said politely, ignoring Edward entirely. "How are you?"

She returned my smile wanly. Why was she so _weak_?

"I've only just woken up, give me a chance," she said jokily.

She sat up, slowly, stretching her spine as she arched her neck. Edward kept an arm round her shoulders as she rose, a position they both were comfortable with, a position that had been assumed many times before. She lifted a hand to sweep her tangled locks back past her shoulder and moved to push the duvet off her body. My eyes blazed in shock.

Bella's stomach had swollen another centimetre, since the evening before, I quickly assessed, but it seemed as though the growth was far more, because the rest of Bella's weak, human body had shrunk. Overnight, she had lost enough weight to be obviously noticeable to a human and blatant to me. Through her elasticated pink pyjama top, I could see a long row of small lumps where her vertebrae pushed against her skin. Her belly protruded as expected, but it looked distinctly wrong, slightly grotesque. It reminded me of pictures of starving African children, if not as extreme, with distended bellies but not a scrap of fat on them.

Unaware of my scrutiny and evaluation, Bella swung her legs round, off the bed, but the movement was too fast. Her face, always so pale for a human, whitened to a shade to rival my own, tinged with a sickening shade of sea green. Recognising the signs of a bout of morning sickness, both Edward and I flashed into action. I wrenched the bathroom door open as Edward snatched his wife up and positioned her in front of the toilet. The disgusting odour of vomit saturated my nostrils as well as settling into our clothes and hair as Bella heaved and retched pitifully.

Eventually, the revolting waterfall ceased and Bella staggered across to the sink. I was already there, turning on the tap as Edward supported her. His gaze remained resolutely on Bella, refusing to look at me, I thought, even when Bella glanced up gratefully to meet my eye, before rinsing her mouth repeatedly. I smiled back, or tried, though it may have been more of a grimace; humans could be so disgusting.

Finally she stood up straight, still slightly bowed from the unaccustomed weight, and turned to thank me properly. "Thanks, Rose," she said weakly.

I was taken aback for a second; Bella had only ever used my full name before now. The rest of the family normally called me Rosalie; it was only Rose when they were on incredibly good terms with me. At any other time, I was liable to snap at the use of my nickname. Even Emmett was cautious about calling me Rose at times. Strangely, though, I found I didn't mind Bella shortening my name. It was, if nothing else, a show to the others that Bella and I were undeniably a team.

The grimace that graced my face became a grin, and for the first time since the previous day, I felt optimistic.

Edward finally looked at me then, and his eyes were beyond merely angry, they were livid. I glared back. _It's what she wants!_

Directly on cue, Bella laid a hand on Edward's arm. "Please don't," she said simply, her teeth nipping at her lip. She hated to do anything that might possibly upset him, and yet she was still defying his wishes.

She looked at me tentatively. "We'll be down in a minute," she promised. "I'm just going to get dressed."

_I'm waiting outside, _I warned Edward before graciously acquiescing. "I'll see you in a minute then."

With one last warning glance at Edward, I retreated from the room. Day two had begun.

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A/N: Day two (or a bit of it, bearing in mind I've written 8 chapters for 2 days so far) will be in Bella's perspective, though at least a bit will be in Jasper's. If anyone can tell me what day Charlie should call, help would be much appreciated, since I've tried to work it out several times and come up with a different answer each time!


	9. The maelstrom

A/N: I know it's been a long time, and I'm so sorry. Unfortunately, life demands from me more time than seems to exist right now. At this very moment I should be asleep because I have a maths exam at 9am tomorrow, and three pieces of coursework remain undone. Never mind. This is Jasper's point of view, following directly on from the previous chapter.

* * *

JPOV

I looked up from the computer, surprised, as a surge of hope, determination and fierce love reached me. I tried to work out who it was, immediately discounting Bella; her human emotions were generally slightly less complex. Not that she didn't feel as much, she just didn't feel as much at one time. Obviously not Edward; I could still feel his despair. My face contorted into a grimace as I focussed on his emotional state instinctively.

"What is it?" Alice asked.

She was sitting across from me in Carlisle's study, curled up behind his desk like a child, her golden eyes fixed on my face. I could feel her concern emanating strongly, and the love that caused it, both layered twice over. Once, I knew, for me, and then once for Bella.

"Nothing," I said to her gently. "I just was feeling Edward's emotions."

Alice grimaced in sympathy with me. "I wish we could get away from this," she said.

"No, you don't," I contradicted her. "You wouldn't be able to bear not knowing what's going on in the present as well as the future."

A wry smile twisted her lips. "You know me so well."

We both looked up then, reacting to the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. Rosalie and Emmett, from the pattern of their treads. I suddenly realised that the emotional surge had come from Rosalie. That was a surprise, as she had been feeling an array of disgust and horror only moments before.

With a last glance in my direction, Alice flew to her feet and darted into the hallway. I followed, deciding to take a break from the research. It seemed there was nothing more to find, anyway.

My wife immediately accosted Rosalie. "How's Bella?" she asked, urgently. Rosalie hesitated before answering. Her deliberation told me that she wasn't sure how to answer. Alice grew ever more frantic.

I sent a wave of reassurance to her, and she relaxed slightly, leaning into my side. I curled an arm round her waist protectively.

Emmett caught my eye and shook his head slightly, before going to flop in front of the television. He didn't turn it on, but sat staring at the blank screen as though he could divine some wisdom from it. Alice's emotions spiralled again.

"Bella's… okay," Rosalie said. "Morning sickness again, but that's to be expected. Also she may need quite a bit more food. It looks like the baby's taking a bit of strength from her."

Carlisle came in from the kitchen where Esme was trying to retrieve food that would be suitable for a human breakfast. His professional curiosity drove him to enquire "To what degree?"

Rosalie's eyes closed for a second, instinctively, and I calmed Alice down before she even had a chance to grow agitated.

"I see," Carlisle said gravely.

"They're coming down in ten minutes or so," Rosalie told him, trying to ignore the family's reactions. I wished I could. "Bella's just getting dressed."

"And how's Edward?" Alice asked, her voice slightly slurred. Perhaps I was overdoing the calmness, but I didn't dare relax.

"The same," Rosalie replied shortly.

A sigh slipped from Alice's cherry lips, and she collapsed onto a sofa. I went to join her, and she buried her head into my chest, her tiny frame curling around mine.

"You haven't found anything new?" Carlisle addressed me. It was unlike him to phrase a question in such a negative way. He was weary, I felt, as well as worried.

"No. I've been looking for tribes in the same region as the Ticunas, but if they do exist, they aren't to be found on the internet, it seems."

Esme came out from the kitchen. "Alice, dear, do you know what Bella normally eats for breakfast? I've got a small selection for her, but…"

"Cereal, usually," Alice replied. "But aren't women supposed to have cravings when they're pregnant?" she asked dully.

A yearning caught my attention; obviously it was originating from Rosalie. The feeling calmed slightly as she tried to control herself; she had always had the most volatile emotional state.

Esme sighed. Concern for two of her daughters emanated strongly from her. "Yes. Some don't, though."

Alice shook her head as though she was trying to shake off a fly. "Esme, could you not ask me, just for now? I keep accidentally trying to see her."

"Oh of course, dear. I'm sorry."

The frustration that Alice felt was palpable to everyone else, as well as me. I stroked her inky hair, which sprung immediately back to its beautiful chaos, murmuring words of comfort to her, and brushing her with the love that was always in rich supply for her. She turned her head to lock her gaze with mine, and loved me back. The tiniest of smiles caressed her lips.

"Oh, God," Emmett muttered. He wasn't dealing with the situation well, his emotional aura deteriorating with every passing second. I wondered exactly how bad Bella looked.

Rosalie teased his curls in a practiced movement, sitting on the arm of his chair in a lazy manner. "Shush, babe, it'll all be fine," she said with a smile on her face. Her optimism in the face of all this pessimism irritated me slightly. Esme and Carlisle exchanged a glance, too, feeling the same uncertainty as me. The impatience of everyone in the room grew as we waited for the newlyweds to appear. A kind of morbid curiosity cut through the concern.

Eventually, we heard Edward's door brush the carpet as it opened. Esme breathed an audible sigh of relief, and some of the tension left the set of Alice's shoulders. A twinge of pain shot through her, though, and I knew she had instinctively looked for Bella again. I tried to alleviate some of her hurt, but I could do less with this unfamiliar predicament than I would have liked.

The doubled footsteps surprised me; I would have assumed that Edward would carry his bride downstairs.

"She's stubborn," Alice reminded me, reading my face and my eyes with all the accuracy that I could attain with the help of my gift. "She doesn't like being weaker than him."

I nodded. That made sense from her point of view, but would do little to aid her health or the family's state of mind. Rosalie's disapproval mixed with Alice's and Esme's; evidently she cared just as much about the former issue, if not the latter.

When they appeared on the stairs, it turned out that Edward was at least attempting to help his pregnant wife. His hand bore some of her weight, placed carefully beneath her elbow. The detail barely registered when presented within the larger picture.

Bella was… vaguely grotesque. Swollen and yet shrunken. A child's drawing of a stick figure with a ballooning stomach. The alarm that came from every corner of the room mixed with my own and intensified. Edward and Emmett betrayed similar emotions: a horror dulled with familiarity, mixed with love. Emmett would never turn against Rosalie, even whilst Edward tried to agree with Bella, and failed spectacularly. Esme emitted sympathy to an extreme degree, towards both Bella and Edward. Carlisle's compassion shone through, layered over a distinct streak of pessimism. My dear Alice's emotions whirled with the velocity and volatility of a maelstrom, a hurricane of monumental proportions, a tempest of terror. Her eyes, always so large and lustrous, grew ever wider, taking in the scene before her. "Bella…" she whispered, too quietly for the girl's human ears.

"Morning," Bella said, cheerfully. I looked away, feeling her fear, her love and her determination. She was everything but cheerful, and it was easy to tell.

Carlisle had managed to retain at least a façade of calm. "Good morning," he said to her, courteously. His eyes darted over her body with the assured authority of a doctor. Though Edward's emotions seemed static, I saw his eyes close for a few seconds in anguish in response to Carlisle's diagnosis. He was too numb for his feelings to properly transmit, I deduced. It had been like this for a while during those seven months away from Forks.

"Would you like some breakfast?" Rosalie asked, quickly. She smiled at Bella reassuringly.

I noted the slight change in Rosalie's feelings towards Bella. She had an affection for the girl that had never been present before, an alteration that had only been implemented this morning.

"Um, it's probably not a good idea," Bella said, sheepishly. "You know, morning sickness."

A spasm of the vehement disgust from earlier came from Rosalie. Evidently, she did know.

"I'll have something later," Bella said.

Silent as death, Edward steered her gently towards a sofa. She glanced at him, but didn't protest. Perhaps she, too, recognised that she was feeling far too weak to be standing for any length of time. He sat down next to her, and she rested against him, laying her head against his shoulder; he put a protective arm around her.

Esme recovered next. "We were wondering, actually, Bella, if you had any particular preferences in the way of food."

Before she could reply, Edward broke his silence. "She hasn't kept anything down since before we left the island," he said in a flat monotone.

"At all?" Carlisle asked, grim.

Bella shook her head, embarrassed. It occurred to me that she didn't blush. Her pallor could almost compare to our own deathly hue. I didn't know much about human physiology—I had never been to medical school, unlike Edward and Rosalie—but I found myself deeply concerned as to her lack of nutrition. How long was it possible for a mortal body to survive without a source of energy?

Edward threw a glance and a bolt of despair at me. That told me enough.

Abruptly, Alice's head jerked up. "Charlie's going to call," she said. As if I wasn't already working too hard to control the eclectic emotions that crushed me.

"Charlie… What are we going to tell him?" Bella asked, frantically.

"We could just say you haven't got back yet," Rosalie suggested, calmer than most.

Bella shook her head distractedly. "We can't hide this forever," she said.

"Well, we can hardly tell him the truth," Emmett said, eternally stating the obvious.

"When will he call, Alice?" Carlisle asked with authority.

Alice slipped into the future; I could feel her relief at being able to do so with minimal pain. "This evening. When he's back from work."

Esme moved to sit on a loveseat. "I think Rosalie's right," she said. "It would at least give us time to either think of a story or…" Her voice drifted off.

"What were you planning to tell him about your change, Bella?" I asked, trying to think logically in the face of the emotional turmoil around me.

"I was planning on avoiding him under the cover of going to college, and then working it out from there," she admitted. Well, it was a temporary reprieve, or would have been.

"Then I suggest we say you haven't returned, and then use your college cover story," I said. Always presuming that she survived that long. Edward didn't react to the errant thought.

"But he would expect a visit before college," Bella said.

Silence reigned for a moment.

"Could we tell him I'm ill?" Bella said, slowly.

"And then what?" Edward asked her in a low, rough voice.

Rosalie, however, was thoughtful. "Actually, that might work," she said. "He'd be prepared not to see you again, at least."

Had Bella been but a shade paler, she would have been the same shade as us. "I can't tell him I'm dead!" she said, more to herself than Rosalie, I thought. "He'd never get over it. Neither would Mom," she added. A wave of remorse swept over her.

"What about the wolves?" Edward asked. "If they think she's ill, they'll assume we're setting Charlie up to be prepared for her death. We can't move with Bella in this condition and the pack has increased; we'd be open to attack."

A tear slipped down Bella's cheek at the mention of the werewolves; perhaps she was scared of a potential fight, and perhaps she was missing the dog Jacob Black.

"Then we tell him you're not back yet, to give us more time to think," Carlisle decided. "Unless someone thinks of a solution by this evening."

A few people nodded; Alice and Emmett remained immobile. I only had an instant's warning when Alice's emotions flared once again.

"Right, I'm going to go and buy you some new clothes," she said to Bella, jumping up and heading for the front door. "Obviously, I hadn't expected you to go down a dress size but still need maternity stuff."

"Alice, I really don't need…" Bella began, but Edward stopped her with a quiet whisper: "Let her go."

All eyes flashed to Alice as she stood by the open door. She ignored them. "Come with me?" she said to me.

It was more of a statement than a question; I had risen before she voiced her request. Alice couldn't stand being in the same room as Bella any more; her head was aching and her emotions were in a perpetual turmoil, no matter how I tried to help her.

We left without saying goodbye, as was custom in our house of immortals, and I took her miniature hand as we made our way slowly to the garage. Without needing to speak, we slid into Edward's Volvo, the habitual shopping car, as it had the largest boot. A slight trace of Bella's scent remained in the fabric of the passenger seat where Alice now sat.

That was the second time in her existence that Alice Whitlock Cullen cried.

* * *

A/N: For details on the first time, see _Let me say goodbye_. I don't know what the next chapter will be, whose perspective it will be from (though a lot of people have asked for Emmett, to which I say maybe), or when it will be posted. Can I just say thank you so much for sticking with me, even when I've been less than regular in my updates. Also, to all those whose reviews I haven't yet answered, I'll do it tomorrow. Or the next day. I thought it was better that I posted a chapter for you than replied to reviews! Therefore, I'm a couple of days behind. Thank you so much for taking the time out to review; I love you for it.


	10. A faux pas

A/N: I'm quite proud of myself for getting this out, despite life. However, I only managed it by becoming an insomniac. Therefore, feel free to review to say "your spelling is atrocious!"

* * *

Emmett's POV

After Alice and Jazz left, Bella got really embarrassed. It was weird, listening to her heart speed up and feeling her temperature rise a bit and seeing that funny little human blush. It was so strange, looking at a human and being round a human all day, but I was getting used to all the little things that showed how she was feeling. It was a damn sight easier than telling with vampires, that was for sure. Maybe being mortal did have some perks.

"Oh gosh, I'm so, so sorry, I'm causing so much stress with everyone, and now Alice-"

"It's fine, Bella, it really is," Rose said.

"But I've caused so much trouble over the last couple of years; I never wanted to cause any distress—I'm so sorry."

"Bella, dear, don't worry about us," Esme said, sounding very calm and gentle and motherly. "We're all far more concerned about you at the moment. Alice will be fine."

Yeah, because Alice was immortal. Unlike Bella.

I was surprised Edward didn't glare at me when I thought that. He was always so touchy, and I guess I would have expected him to be even touchier at the moment. But he didn't even blink. It was true what Bella said: we'd come across more trouble in the last few years than we ever had before, all centred round her, and that must really hurt Edward. It felt like he was always about to lose her. What happened to happily ever afters?

"Carlisle, do you want to take those measurements now?" Edward said. He sounded so un-gentlemanly, totally unlike Edward, more animal-like than I'd heard before.

"Is that alright, Bella?" Carlisle asked her.

"Sure," she said. As if she would have said "no, actually, I'm going to make things more difficult for everyone". The thing about Bella was that she never _tried _to cause trouble. She just did.

We waited in silence for Carlisle to get some scales and stuff. Esme kept looking from Bella to Edward to Rose again and again, and every now and again she looked at me too. Bella looked at her hands in her lap, and Edward and Rose watched her. I was kind of watching everyone else, but mostly I was just staring at the TV. Like a habit, like touching wood. If you cross your fingers, it doesn't count, and everything will be okay.

"Here we are, then," Carlisle said when he came back. "If you'd like to step on here, Bella…"

So the measuring began. First her weight. When she saw whatever the scales said, Bella gasped.

"What is it?" Carlisle asked.

"That's exactly what I weighed the day before the wedding," Bella admitted.

Oh great. So even though she was absolutely huge, she'd lost the same amount of weight she'd put on because she wasn't eating properly. Great start.

Then Carlisle measured her stomach from top to bottom. "Sorry about the cold," he said, smiling at her.

"I'm kind of used to it," she said, trying to smile back.

He nodded. "Of course," he said, but Edward flinched a bit. "Twenty centimetres," Carlisle announced.

"Half-term," Rosalie added. If there was anything to know about pregnancy, my Rose knew it. She hadn't gone to medical school for nothing.

"Half-term," Bella repeated, and she sounded a bit faint. Surprised, but happy.

"What do you think about that?" Rose asked. I smiled a bit. It was the first time that Rose had really tried to get to know Bella, and I was glad. I was fond of the little human, and her klutziness, and her blushes, and most of all what she'd done for Edward—he had seriously needed to get laid. Usually, though, it was him who was always asking Bella 'what are you thinking' which used to be so funny. Edward, the know-it-all, having to actually ask someone something. Rose asking it sounded a bit… well, wrong.

Bella's mouth opened, but she didn't speak for a moment. "I'm surprised, a bit. Though not much. I mean, it's not as if I don't look it. Relieved, because the quicker this goes, the less stress everyone has. And…" She quickly looked at Edward before she went on. "It's wonderful. A new life, and half ready already. I can't quite believe it."

Rose laughed out loud. I grinned. Rose being happy made me happy; I couldn't help it. "So you believe in the vampires at school, and the werewolves down the road, but you don't believe in a baby in your stomach?" I asked Bella. "What, have you forgotten how it got…"

Damn.

Me and my stupid mouth. Bella was staring at me in horror, and if Bella had got the innuendo, then no one else had missed it. Rose sighed. Carlisle threw me one of those fatherly looks that said 'I'm very disappointed in you'. Esme didn't even look at me; she was watching Edward, who looked away from Bella. He didn't glare at me or anything, just looked away. This was bad. This was really, really bad.

"Edward…" Bella said, and she reached out to put her hand on his arm. He didn't move. Okay, this was a lot worse than really, really bad.

Carlisle stepped in. "I'm just going to take some bloods now. Esme, Emmett, would you like to step outside for a moment?"

Was he kidding me? What I wanted right then was to run for the door and sprint clear to another state. Another continent, maybe. Esme nodded, smiling at Bella, and she got up painfully slowly. I jumped up at a humanly impossible speed, ready to bolt.

"Will you be okay, Rose?" Bella asked. She sounded scared, probably afraid of getting her blood sucked. Or maybe she was scared of upsetting her. In her shoes, I would've been afraid of upsetting her, too.

But Rose surprised me. She just tossed her beautiful, long, thick hair over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. "Please give me a little credit. I have been through medical school, you know."

Bella smiled. I knew there was no way Rose would leave Bella at the moment, and it was almost as certain that she wouldn't drink her blood. The baby was too precious. Esme opened the back door, softly as always, letting me go through first. I was off in a shot, bounding across the meadow and leaping across the river before Esme had even left the porch. She caught up though, because I stopped. I didn't really want to go too far. I was too worried about everyone, Bella and Rose the most. If something happened to Bella and the baby, Rose would be devastated.

Esme was watching me, waiting for me to say something. Waiting to pounce on me, more like. I'd really screwed up this time.

"Any idea how long this'll take?" I asked. Surely that wouldn't give her an excuse to attack.

"I'm afraid not. It's not a process I'm familiar with," she said. No, of course she wasn't. And that's the end of that conversation.

The silence went on for a bit longer, and I got more and more guilty, and more and more tense, and then finally I couldn't take it anymore.

"Okay, I'm sorry!" I said loudly. "I'm an idiot, and I should think about what I say before it comes thundering out of my mouth."

But Esme laughed softly, surprising me. "And here I thought you had never listened to what we've been telling you for seventy years." She sighed. "It's not your fault, Emmett. Almost anything would upset Edward now. What Bella said probably hurt him more than what you did."

"Yeah, but he'd never get annoyed with Bella," I pointed out.

"True," she agreed. "But my point is that while you should try to think about your comments slightly more at the moment, you shouldn't worry overmuch. When it comes down to it, you will always be yourself, and you have always antagonised Edward. It's inevitable that you will annoy and upset him at the moment."

"I guess," I said. "Doesn't stop me feeling like an idiot."

"And I would love to say that that's part of being human."

I laughed. "We seriously need our own language. When Carlisle's going on about humanity, it sounds so stupid."

"Maybe we should devote a while to creating one," Esme suggested, smiling.

"Nah, far too boring," I said.

She laughed. "Perhaps we could leave that idea to rest for a few decades then."

"Few centuries, more like," I said.

Both of our heads snapped up. Carlisle was opening the door. "It's quite safe to come back, now," he called. "Only the slightest of traces left, and the sample is in my office, if you want to avoid it."

"Shall we?" Esme said, and then we started back for the house, a bit slower than when we had left. I jumped over the river, rather than running through it, because I thought Esme had enough to deal with without getting mudstains out of the carpet. Heck, that sounded almost _considerate_. This whole pregnancy thing was getting to me.

When we got in, Bella was sitting back on the sofa, with Edward beside her and Rose standing behind her. Carlisle had gone back to his office, to analyse the blood, I guessed.

"Sorry, Edward, mate," I said. He wasn't really listening to thoughts at the moment. Too busy with his own, probably. "And sorry, Bella."

"No, that's fine, Emmett. It's just how you are. Don't be sorry," Bella said.

Edward looked at me and nodded. Well, better than nothing.

No one said anything for a moment. It was all so awkward. Normally everyone was talking, or doing something. Fifty years as a family and we never ran out of things to say. If it was a normal day, me and Rose might be working on a car, or I might be playing video games with Jazz, or maybe watching a game, or going out to hunt, or planning a practical joke on Edward.

"Bella, dear," Esme said, after a bit. "Would you like to try to eat something now?"

She looked nervous. I suppose if eating made me throw up, I'd be nervous too. And wasn't there acid in human stomachs or something? That must hurt her throat. Bit like being round humans, I imagined.

"Yeah, okay," she said. "Um, what is there?"

"Esme and Alice went slightly mad shopping for human food," I said. "Honestly, you'd think they were trying to get something interesting."

Bella smiled. Good. She really needed to smile a bit at the moment.

"So we've got cereal, toast, eggs, Pop-Tarts, pancakes, porridge, croissants, pain au chocolat…" Esme reeled off.

"Wow. You meant it, didn't you?" Bella said to me.

"Oh yeah. Wait until you hear all the non-breakfast stuff. And the drinks!"

Carlisle came back in then. "If I may, I'd suggest that you eat something sugary. Your blood sugar levels are quite low. Otherwise, your bloods are completely normal for a pregnant woman."

Rose beamed, I smiled and so did Esme. Edward's face didn't change at all.

Bella nodded and she looked relieved. "Good. Great. In which case, could I have a Pop-Tart, please?"

It was so funny watching her, because she looked so uncomfortable asking someone else to make her breakfast. In any other situation, I could have had fun with that.

"Of course," Esme smiled. "What flavour would you like?"

I groaned, loudly. Rose giggled a bit, and Carlisle smiled at us all. Edward looked away, probably disgusted that any of us dare even consider seeing a humorous side in anything at the moment.

_A bit of comedy might do everyone some good, _I thought. He ignored me. Maybe he did actually agree, but he just couldn't find anything funny. Not his fault.

"Whatever's got the highest sugar content, I'm not fussed," Bella said. Esme smiled and went out to fetch a Pop-Tart and I settled down to watch Bella eat.

Watching Bella eat was really weird. I found it kind of fascinating. I couldn't remember eating anything ever, besides on dares of course, but I still couldn't remember eating anything and not coughing it up later. I _definitely_ couldn't remember eating anything and actually enjoying it. Seeing Bella chew everything so slowly, with her blunt little teeth, bit by bit, was an odd experience for me. I wondered how it tasted to her, since everything tasted disgusting to us unless it was blood. All the different words like bitter, sharp, savoury, sweet and sour didn't really mean anything to me. We called human blood sweet-tasting and animal blood sour, but they were just words. We might have it entirely wrong. Who knows?

Unfortunately, I didn't get to watch her eat much. Because after managing two bites, she went that weird shade of green, and threw up into the bowl that Rose had already got from the kitchen and shoved under her nose.

Great. Just great.

* * *

A/N: I don't actually know what the next chapter will be, or from whose POV it'll be. I'm going for ch5 of another fic first, so be prepared to wait a bit. Sorry. Insomnia is actually very difficult to maintain, you know.


	11. Fear

A/N: This is the shortest chapter so far, for which I apologise, but it gets so intense that I couldn't bring myself to add to it. You'll see what I mean.

* * *

**Carlisle's POV**

After Bella's second bout of morning sickness, we decided that we wouldn't try feeding her again until after noon.

"Morning sickness can theoretically occur at any time, though, can't it?" Bella asked.

I smiled at her. "Yes, but it's more common in the morning, which is the reason it's named as it is. We know you're suffering from it at all times of the day, but maybe it will prove to be worse in the morning, and therefore better at other times."

Bella nodded. At this point, Rosalie returned from the kitchen, where she had been cleaning out the bowl that Bella had vomited into. Her face was still slightly pinched from the smell. "My friend Vera had it terribly for around six weeks, but then it just stopped," she said, making an effort to sound light and casual. "Given that you're advancing a lot quicker than Vera did, maybe yours will stop soon, too."

I remembered Vera Harrison's morning sickness, having been the doctor who examined her and advised her that the condition usually left abruptly after twelve weeks of pregnancy. With my perfect recall, I knew that she had seen me in her seventh week, and had had been suffering from the severe spells for six days when she came in to see me. I had helped deliver her baby, little Henry Harrison, seven and a half months later. Rosalie Hale had been mother and son's second visitor, after John Harrison, Vera's husband, Henry's father. I remembered watching the beautiful young woman hold her friend's child for the first time, her reluctance to hand him back. She had covered it then with a laugh, with a comment about her greed, but when she turned to leave the jealousy was plain on her face. When I escorted her out, she had snapped at me.

"What are you staring at?" she had asked.

"Nothing, Miss Hale," I assured her. "I was just thinking it was very kind of you to offer some support to your friend."

She had huffed at me, and left as quickly as she could. I was sure that she, too, was thinking of her true feelings towards Mrs Vera Harrison and her little boy.

It had occurred to me before now that our current predicament was much the same situation. A friend who was pregnant when Rosalie didn't have a chance of conception. The same support for both Bella and Vera, given because it was Rosalie's only way of becoming a mother.

"Isn't that right, Carlisle?" Rosalie asked now.

"Yes," I agreed smoothly. "For the vast majority of women, morning sickness stops at the end of the first trimester."

"It did for me," Esme said. "I only had it very sparingly, but as soon as I got into my fourth month, nothing."

Edward turned his head just slightly so Bella wouldn't see his lips move. "She's halfway through her second trimester, according to your measurements," he said, below the level of human hearing.

"Edward," I said. "Would you come and look at Bella's blood results?"

He could hear that my true motives were about anything but Bella's blood, but still he nodded and dutifully followed me out of the room, up the stairs to my office. He didn't speak until the door was safely closed behind us.

"I'm trying," he said quietly. "You know I'm trying."

_I do, _I told him. _But I don't think it's enough._

He looked sharply at me then, but I held up a hand.

_Let me finish. I know this is impossibly difficult for you, but it's a hundred times worse for Bella. She has to deal with her own feelings as well as yours. I've seen a thousand cases or more where one partner wants an abortion, and almost every time the couple breaks up, or nearly, because of it. Bella isn't only worrying about the health of her child, she's worrying about her own health and she's worrying about your health. Your mental health. She never saw you when you were parted, she doesn't know how bad you felt then, she's probably wondering if it was like this at the beginning or at the end. Edward, we all know one can only act so far, and that you hate to lie to her, but a white lie would be the best option here. She needs to believe that you're, if not accepting, at least trying to support her wishes and believe that this will all work out. Because at the moment you seem to have given up already. You need to have hope._

"How can I?" He ground his teeth, and it heartened me to see this little betrayal of emotion.

_You must. This is not like the last time. She is still alive, sitting next to you. Isn't that enough?_

His face was turned to the ground now, his eyes pressed tight closed. "It should be. I know. But I know what it's like to lose her. I can't go through that again, I can't, I just can't."

I put a hand on his arm. _And you may not have to. Focus on that._

"I'm trying," he repeated.

_The other option is to spend some time away from her. Go hunting with Emmett—he needs a break, too._

He cut me off. "No. I'm not going to leave her. Either way, this will all be over in a matter of weeks, and I hunted less than a week ago."

_Very well. But bear in mind what I said._

"I will," he said, but the dismissal was clear in his voice.

_This is what I'm talking about! _I thought. _You've given up trying before you've even started._

"Carlisle, it's not a choice between acting like _this_—" the disgust at himself was evident "—and better. It's a choice between maintaining some semblance of composure and losing all control. What I want to do is run away, escape to a place where there is nothing but nothingness and scream to the skies, to stand at the top of a mountain and make the world understand exactly how wretched I feel. I want to feel all the anger, all the loathing, all the pain, all the grief, I want to feel it pour out of me, ripping at my throat, I want it to hurt me, tear me, and leave me empty. And then I could work on having anything resembling hope."

His voice was quiet, cold, composed. His words terrified me.

"Rosalie's putting on a teen flick that Bella hasn't seen yet," he said. "Emmett's complaining. He heard what I said, and he's scared. He thinks he'll go out to hunt. Alice said earlier that she'll be back just before Charlie's phone call; I haven't had an opportunity to tell you. Esme's been listening to our conversation. She'll come up to talk to you soon. I'm going back to Bella."

He paused. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. But I can't do anything. All I can do is hope that Bella doesn't see through me."

He left then, and I stood immobile inside the entrance to my office. Edward scared me more than anything I had seen concerning Bella. Oh, Edward.

* * *

A/N: It's a fantasy I used to have when I was about ten. I wanted to scream at the world because no one was listening, because it couldn't do anything, because I was hurting so much that I wanted to hurt even more.

Next chapter is Charlie's phone call. The POV is a surprise to everyone except JustineLark, who suggested it. Though you could guess it if you tried hard enough. Or barely tried at all, really.

God, that chapter was depressing. Unfortunately, it will just get worse here on in, I think. Chapter 13 will be prohibited if your mental state is anything but absolutely secure.


	12. Out of touch

A/N: Well done to Dunna, who got the closest! It's Charlie's POV, as suggested by the wonderful JustineLark (go and read her story Date Night, if nothing else. It's brill). Surprisingly, he was actually quite easier to write. Easier than Emmett by a long shot. Maybe because he's human!

* * *

**Charlie's POV**

I shut the door behind me, pulled off my gun and hung it up, like I'd done every day for the last however many years. I kicked off my boots like I did every evening, shrugged out of my jacket and stopped myself calling for Bella like I'd done for the last couple of weeks.

Odd, isn't it, how quickly you get used to something. For fourteen years since Renée left, Bella had come up to Forks for a couple of weeks every summer, then I'd only seen her at Christmas when I went down to Phoenix for a couple of days. I'd been so used to having the whole house to myself all the time, and it used to feel normal. When Bella first arrived here, all grown up, it took me a while to get used to her being here. Most of the time she was so quiet, spending her time in her room, that I'd barely notice her, really, but I always knew she was up there, reading or doing her homework or listening to music. Some of the time she was impossible to miss. A phone call at work telling me that not only had there been a car accident at the school, but that it involved my daughter, that sort of thing was a nightmare.

But that was my Bella. Accident prone enough to nearly kill herself twice a day. Take that birthday party she'd had last September. She comes home with a bandage on her arm. Tripped. Her balance is worse than mine, and that's saying something. I don't know any other person who could go to a hotel and fall down two flights of stairs and _then_ fall out of a window. That girl of mine had the luck of the devil.

Even when she wasn't really here, when she'd gone through those awful months, she was still there, cooking dinner, doing the laundry, without me ever having asked her. The house had never been so clean.

Anyway, so I'd got used to having her around over the last couple of years. And now she'd left, a married woman, on her honeymoon. It was still so weird a couple of weeks later, and I had to stop myself now from calling out "Bells?"

How long had it been? I wandered into the kitchen, grabbing a beer from the fridge as I went, and had a look at the calendar that Bella had got for Christmas from her friend, Angela. She'd been the only kid from school to get Bella something. I'd always liked the Weber girl—she was a lot like Bella. Quiet and mature.

Bella hadn't made much fuss of her wedding date on the calendar. She hadn't even written anything in the little box; she'd just circled the number to remind me. She didn't need reminding herself; I got the feeling it was engraved on her mind. Well, it was her wedding day, of course it was!

I remembered my wedding to Renée, twenty years ago. 'Course, I was a little hazy on the date now, but back then I'd been counting down. It's the girl who's supposed to love these things, but me and Bella both got it the wrong way round. I didn't ask Renée until she got pregnant with Bella, but I loved her so much that once we'd both got used to the idea, I couldn't wait to be married to her. The only reason I hadn't asked before was that it just hadn't crossed my mind. Even back then, you didn't just get married straight out of high school.

I sighed. I'd made myself accept Bella's wedding over the last month, couple of months, just because I knew Bella loved that boy of hers just as much I loved Renée. And I still didn't regret marrying Renée, even after everything. Hell, if I had it my way…

But Renée was happy now. Phil was a nice bloke, bit young, but then maybe I was just too old. She loved him. That was what mattered. Maybe it was time for me to go looking for someone…

Nah. I couldn't imagine meeting anyone now. The days of my youth had long gone. Plus, I was busy with work. No time to go out dating, or however you were supposed to meet someone. I really was a bit clueless, I guess. Me and Renée had met at kindergarten and besides a bit of flirting and going to the cinema when I was fifteen, I'd never really thought about anyone else, so dating had been a bit of a pointless idea to me.

I cracked open my beer and counted the days since the box with the circled date. Twenty. Almost three weeks, now. I wondered if Bella might be back yet. How long were honeymoons supposed to last? May as well phone up and check. I had nothing better to do. There was a match on, but the program didn't start for another half an hour or so. I was only planning on ordering in a pizza, so nothing I could do in the kitchen either. I snorted. As if I ever did anything in the kitchen.

Why not ring them up? I'd best get used to the in-laws, seeing as Bella was going to be living with them. And I liked them. Carlisle and Esme were both lovely, gentle people, not to mention the fact that Carlisle had saved my daughter's life, and he was a godsend to the local hospital to boot. Alice was an absolute angel—I don't know what I would have done if Alice hadn't been around when Bella needed help showering. And it had been Alice who'd been thoughtful enough to visit Bella when her family had left, even if she had dragged her off to L.A. No, I didn't blame Alice for that. I didn't know Rosalie, Jasper and Emmett all that well, but I knew Rosalie and Emmett had been accepted at Harvard, and generally I had no reason to dislike any of them. In fact, I only had a reason not to like Edward.

Bella got annoyed when I let on how much I really didn't like her boyfriend, husband, whatever. Understandable, I guess, but she knew I had some bloody good reasons. You could even list them. So on her first date with him, after he promises to take care of her, she comes back crying and wanting to go back to Arizona. I still don't know what that was about. Then instead of respecting her wishes, he goes and chases her across the country to bring her back. On her way to his hotel room, she nearly kills herself. Okay, so I couldn't blame that on him entirely—my balance genes had a big part in that one—but it was his fault in the first place that she left!

I was obviously a bit annoyed with him after that, but I was prepared to forgive and forget. Until he left her. What was it, three days after her eighteenth birthday? And he didn't even think to warn her that his dad had a new job. How much of an idiot is he? He nearly killed her. I spent months expecting to wake up and find Bella's body lying somewhere. If it hadn't been for Jacob, I bet she would have done it eventually. Even when she was getting better, with Jake, she still screamed at least once every two or three nights in her sleep. I heard _his _name every week. It was like he was some sort of evil ghost, haunting her.

Was it any surprise I didn't welcome him back with open arms? Was it any surprise I wished Bella would see how bad he had hurt her and choose Jacob, who had always been there for her when she needed someone? Plus, Jake was practically family—I've known that kid since birth. And he always seemed to have so much life. Not like Edward, who was always so calm and polite. I didn't know who he really was. With Jake, you saw what you got and you got what you saw.

Jake'd probably know if Bella was back from her honeymoon. Thank God he came back. Turned out he'd just packed up and left when he heard about the wedding. Decided to take a break. Billy always knew it was something like that, that's why he wasn't so hot on the missing person scheme. He knew Jake needed some space. I wish he'd just told me that. Then again, maybe he was a bit scared that he was wrong. Jacob always was independent. He took care of Billy as much as Billy took care of him. Not such a surprise for a kid like Jacob to take himself off on vacation.

Maybe he wouldn't know if Bella was back, on second thoughts. They'd had their arguments in the past over her relationship with Edward. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't talk for a month or so, and then forgave each other. It was kind of a pattern with them. First over the 'gang' thing, then after L.A., and then before the wedding. They never kept it up long, though. Now they were really like a married couple.

I put the beer down on the side and went over to the phone. I felt a bit embarrassed when I realised I didn't know their phone number, so I didn't know my daughter's phone number any more. In the meantime, I got the address book out from where Bella had tidied it away a month ago, and flipped to C. The number was in there twice, but it had been crossed out once, almost a year ago, so thickly that you couldn't read the name or number. Then it had been written back in.

I dialled the number and waited. Who would pick up? I hoped it wouldn't be Edward. I could do without being rude to Bella's husband first time I spoke to him after the honeymoon. Anyone else I could deal with.

"Hello, the Cullen residence?"

Esme. Thank goodness.

"Hi, Esme, it's Charlie. I was just ringing up to see if Bella and Edward got back yet." I'd never been good at small talk, especially not on the phone. On the phone, I said what I needed to say, and not a lot more.

"Hello Charlie, we were just going to ring you." There was a pause on the line. Odd. "Bella and Edward got back late yesterday evening. They had to cut short their honeymoon because Bella's ill."

I snorted a laugh. Trust Bella. Healthy as a horse ninety nine per cent of the time, then gets ill on her honeymoon.

"Actually Charlie, I'm afraid it's quite serious," Esme said.

I stopped laughing then. Trust Bella. "How serious?"

"Carlisle's treating her here, in isolation. We think she's picked up a tropical virus, but we're not sure what it is."

"Isolation? Like a quarantine?" I asked. "What about you?"

"Well, by the time we realised she needed to be quarantined, we'd all been in contact with her, which essentially puts us under quarantine too."

Oh God. This was sounding worse and worse by the minute.

"Charlie? Would you like to speak to Carlisle?"

"Yeah, that'd be great, thanks Esme."

"I'll pass you over."

I waited for a few seconds. What on earth was it with Bella? Would nothing ever go right for her? Did it run in the family?

"Hello, Charlie, it's Carlisle."

"Hey, Carlisle. So… can you tell me what's up with Bella?"

I heard a sigh on the other end of the phone. "I'm sorry, I still haven't been able to diagnose anything."

"Well, so what are her symptoms?" I asked. "What's actually wrong?"

"Vomiting, mainly, which is causing severe malnutrition. Her body temperature is oscillating between extreme highs and lows. She's very weak, but lucid."

"What are you giving her?"

The doctor came out with a list of medicines that I listened to, but didn't really hear. For one thing, I didn't recognise a single drug he mentioned—he could have made it up for all I knew—and for another, these weren't the questions I really wanted to ask. Not the really important one. When the silence told me that Carlisle had finished, I finally blurted it out.

"Will she survive?"

There was a pause, and I swear to God you could have heard a pin drop. I thought I might have stopped breathing.

"I can't say for certain."

I was beyond scared now, I was terrified. So I did what I always did when I was scared: I got angry.

"Just where was this island, anyway?" I demanded.

"A few miles east of Brazil."

That told me nothing.

"And how come she got ill but Edward didn't?" That probably came out a bit rude, but I really didn't care right then. My daughter might be dying; I didn't have time for manners.

"I think it must have been pure luck," Carlisle said heavily. "Edward's always had a good immune system."

"So's Bella," I pointed out.

"I know," he said. "It must have been luck."

"I'm coming to visit," I announced.

"No," Carlisle said quickly, but I was already talking over him.

"I don't care if I get ill; I need to see my daughter."

"You can't, for Bella's sake—"

"It's for Bella's sake that I want to see her!"

"Charlie, please give me a minute to explain."

I waited stubbornly. He really wasn't going to change my mind on this.

"If you become ill, for whatever reason, Bella will be very stressed and worried for you, which will weaken her own resolve and her chances of… of recovery. And then there's the possibility that something in Bella's genetic make-up allowed the disease to take hold, which would explain the apparent immunity of the rest of the family, in which case you would be at a much greater risk, which in turn would worry Bella more."

I was torn. It was that parental thing: I wanted to be with my daughter, but at the same time I wanted what was best for her, and if staying away was the best thing… Suddenly, I felt all the fight go out of me.

"Okay, I won't come. Not yet," I amended. "Is Bella there? Can I speak to her?"

"Of course you can. I'm just bringing the phone through. Here you are."

"Bella?"

"Hey, Dad."

First impression: she sounded ill. Her voice was kind of hoarse, like she had a sore throat. I guessed that was from the vomiting. And as well as that, she really did sound weak, like it was an effort to speak. Bella'd never been the chattiest person, but she could talk like the best of them; it was such a tiny, everyday thing, talking, and it scared me that she sounded so strained.

"Sorry about all this," Bella carried on.

"What are you like?" I grumbled. "It's hardly your fault."

"I'm still sorry."

"How're you keeping up?" I asked, knowing 'how are you' would be a stupid question.

"I'm okay," she croaked. That girl was a terrible liar. "Everyone's stuck here with me, after all. It's not as if I'm dying of loneliness."

Not funny, Bella. I laughed weakly. "Guess it's a good thing you've got a doctor in the house."

"Definitely," she agreed. "Could you do me a favour?"

"What?" I asked.

"Could you not tell Mom just yet? I promise I'll tell her if I need to, but you know how badly she'll freak."

"Yeah. Good point."

There was a pause. Bella was almost as bad as me on the phone.

"Um, Dad, I kind of have to go," she finally said.

"Why?" She didn't have anything to do, anyplace to go, did she?

"You don't want to know."

"Oh," I said pathetically. "I'll phone again, okay?"

"We'll keep you updated," she promised.

"Good," I said firmly. "Bye then, Bells."

"Bye, Dad. Love you."

"Yeah, you too."

I put the phone down and stared at it for a minute. Bella was right, I couldn't ring Renée. I remembered all too well the almighty fuss she'd made every other time Bella was ill or injured.

Should I ring Billy, tell him to tell Jake? No, I decided, best not. Jacob wouldn't be thrilled that Bella was ill, but I didn't know if the pair of them were on good terms or not. I'd leave that one, at least for a few days. Though it would be nice to chat to Billy about it. But Rachel was home from university now—I wouldn't break up the family by upsetting Jake.

_Families_, I thought scornfully. We'd never been much of a family, me, Bella and Renée. And I thought it was sons who disappeared as soon as they got married. Not daughters. I might be losing my daughter, but I couldn't tell her mom. And if they got ill, we'd lose Bella's whole new family, too.

Oh God. What a mess. What a bloody mess.

* * *

A/N: I'm sad to report that this story is coming to a close. The next chapter will be the last, from Edward's POV. Might be a while because I've got Renesmee's First Christmas to be getting on with too, but I think it will be a couple of weeks at most (don't hold me to it).


	13. Missing Moments

A/N: And so our story comes to an end. This chapter had been in the planning for around four months, maybe more. I'm warning you now, you may come out the other end feeling suicidal. Writing it was... painful. Plus, anyone who reads a story for dialogue and hates narrative... um, sorry. Welcome to Edward's exiting soliloquy.

* * *

**EPOV**

And so we waited. Rosalie waited for the baby to be born, Alice waited for her sight to come back to her, Emmett waited for his wife to come back to him, and I waited for Bella to die.

I watched her frail body swelling obscenely, the inky bruises blossoming like black roses on her pale skin, her flesh retracting visibly, her cheeks losing their beautiful blush.

I felt her body temperature swing wildly from a blazing wildfire to the Arctic Tundra, felt her embraces grow weaker, felt her will to live grow desperate.

I heard her voice grow fainter, her throat become drier, her heartbeat flutter, her breathing become shallow.

I smelt her blood become weaker. I knew then that I was losing her.

My family knew not to talk to me when I was like this. I heard them watching me fail, watching me rot internally like the corpse that Bella threatened so horrendously to become, but they never confronted me after Carlisle took me aside on that first morning. I heard Esme's despair as I fell silent and still, Alice's oscillating rage and depression, Carlisle's hope eroded steadily and irrevocably. Over the next three days, they saw me rot and wither and die, and never once attempted to interfere. They knew nothing could revive the dead, save life. I needed life. So fervently, I needed life for Bella.

Bella, the foetus, our family, Alice, Esme, Rosalie, Charlie, the wolves, Bella… My thoughts were wild, leaping and falling all over the place, clawing at my mind, attacking with such tenacity, but always they came back to Bella.

Bella. There were moments when I thought I might hate her for doing this to herself, us, me, but I knew I could never hate her; I hated myself instead. I should never have put her in this position; I should never have stolen her from a pure, unsullied human life; I should never have wanted to agree to her ridiculous condition. I should have stayed in Alaska after the day we first met. Better that she never knew me than _this_.

She would disagree, I knew. She would tell me it was worth it, I was worth it, and only days before I might have dared to believe that we were worth any obstacles that life might throw in our way. I revolted myself, abhorrent creature that I was.

Bella didn't try to tell me now that I was worth it. She didn't even try to speak to me, instead trying to ignore my growing madness, but it was inevitable that she would be affected by my mood, no matter how I tried to appear calm and sane. I knew she saw through all my pretences; we were too attuned to each other, too much like a single entity. She stroked my hair with frail little gestures, caressed my face, trying vainly to smooth away the pain. For my part, I endeavoured not to flinch away from her touch. So many conflicting feelings: I craved her touch, but at the same time I feared to feel a sheen of sweat or the harsh heat of fever, and I hated to impose my proximity on her when I had hurt her so perilously fatally.

The family filled Bella's time with inane distractions, digging out films I remembered escaping decades before, entertaining her with video game competitions, and Bella herself escaping into _Sense and Sensibility _yet again. Every time she flicked a page over with practiced, fragile fingers, her beautiful floral scent blew towards me and I smelt the unfamiliar vampiric note, emanating from the foetus like a discordant harmony.

A vampire child! It was an abomination, a monster, a hideous freak of the unnatural which Bella and I had inadvertently created. No, no, I could not blame Bella for the creation of a monster. Evil is created of evil, tainting goodness and inspiring further acts of evil. This was entirely my fault. If I had done the right thing and let Bella live the life she deserved, she could have had a dozen children, with minimal risk to her health. I found myself wishing, not for the first time, that I had met Bella when I was still human. I could picture our pure human child and I tried desperately not to, but the images slipped through, showing me a tantalising image of the land of what might have been: Bella's body swelling, dressed in the fashions of the era of my long-lost life, glowing with the radiance of a perfect pregnancy. I could see a little girl dancing towards me with Bella's gorgeous chocolate eyes and my bronze coloured hair hanging down her back and swaying in the breeze, and I detested the sight for its impossibility.

Bella slept on the sofa now. She fell asleep there once without warning, and no one wanted to risk waking her, despite how soundly she slept. We kept up an almost silent vigil by her deathbed; Carlisle and Esme spoke occasionally, Emmett and Rosalie exchanged a few words. Only Alice and Jasper maintained what could be called a conversation, consoling each other as their respective gifts plagued them, clinging to each other in this darkest of nights.

Of course they couldn't leave the house. For one thing, we now had to maintain the façade of quarantine for the humans' sake, so we couldn't be seen in town, and for another, the potential war was a ticking time bomb.

It was only a matter of time before the werewolves found out that something was wrong with Bella. Charlie's closest friend was Billy Black; we might have had only minutes until the wolves heard of Bella's illness and imagined the worst. How could they know that the situation was so much worse than the worst? Maybe the wolves would waste no time in attacking, maybe they would come to verify their suspicions first, maybe they wouldn't act at all. Sam had seemed to be becoming more forgiving towards Bella's wishes before the wedding. It was Jacob Black who would cause trouble.

How I would welcome Jacob's attack, when she was… But not yet.

Oh, that I had left Bella with Jacob Black! To think of all the times I claimed he was dangerous! The only time he had lost control and phased too close was because of me. I had never given him enough credit. He was completely and utterly right: he was so much better for Bella. At least he could retain a basically human life, at least he could give her children.

He could…

So began my planning.

The first of my plans was simple and obvious. If Bella died, though the word _if_ seemed superfluous and inappropriate, Jacob would help me follow. He would be only too willing; I doubted I would even have to ask. The only factor I had to consider, as I had in Volterra, was whether I would escape this cruel world once my head was ripped from my body and my corpse was nothing but ashes. Would I escape into blissful oblivion, be sent to Hell—for there was no hope of Heaven—or would I be trapped in my ashes, condemned to remain forever conscious and alone? An injured or dismembered vampire could easily repair themselves, still sentient. Would my ashes blow on the wind, forever mourning?

I would take my chances.

The second plan was convoluted and complex, constantly being altered, primarily because I couldn't bear to think about it at first. It was so obscene, so repulsive.

So tempting.

Jacob Black could give her children.

Bella would never accept the idea of a simple donor. I knew that despite her modern views on marriage, she was old fashioned enough to want the father of her child to be there. But Jacob was another matter…

Could I give Bella up? Of course I could, if it kept her alive. I would do anything for her. Even this. I could give her the choice again, the choice she had made only months ago: Jacob or me. This time, maybe she would choose differently; though Jacob had exactly the same assets, they would mean more to her now.

But I knew my Bella. Maybe I could give her up, but I doubted she either could or would relinquish her claim on me. I loved her so much for needing me. Clearly I needed her too, but most of all I needed her alive. Everything else I could endure, so long as she existed.

Could she have us both?

I recoiled from the idea as soon as it presented itself in the ghost of a dream, but immediately I embraced it. If it kept Bella alive, I would endure letting her go whenever she wanted, whenever it was necessary; I would endure Jacob's thoughts, his memories, his gloating. I would treasure our time together, accepting our limits for what they were. I could do this for her.

Could this work?

Bella's words from two days before came flooding back to me: "It's _this _child, Edward, it's _your _child." She would hate the idea of having someone else's child, but Jacob wasn't just anyone.

Circular arguments ran rings around my mind. It quickly became apparent that I couldn't broach the subject with Bella; she would dismiss me out of hand, and Rosalie would never leave us alone. It wasn't a topic I wanted to talk about with our family in the room, if only because they would find such a suggestion as repulsive as it initially had appeared to me. I obviously couldn't ask anyone else here to ask her. Therefore, it had to be Jacob himself.

But how to get in touch with him? I could only do this face to face, and I couldn't leave Bella, much less go to La Push. _Ergo_, he had to come here, without knowing what was going on, for risk of him telling the pack. If we were to have a war, it had to be after Jacob had agreed to try.

I didn't even consider the possibility that Jacob might refuse. He probably would jump at the chance, if only to save Bella. I had to concede that he did love her, in his own way—he would want to save or avenge her at almost any cost. He valued her life and her happiness, and he valued her humanity. This would keep her human. He would not disagree.

This still left the problem of how to get him here. And every second that I could not solve this most hideous of conundrums, Bella was dying.

I was not the only person who was plotting behind Bella's back. Alice, though it hurt her too much to be physically close to Bella, was constantly thinking of ways to talk her out of her 'idiocy' and dismissing all of them as unrealistic or unlikely to work. She thought of working on Rosalie once, but laughed bitterly at herself for even considering the possibility of Rosalie changing her mind, which made her wonder if Bella had somehow managed to rival Rosalie's extreme degree of tenacity. With every discarded plan and thought, she tried to suppress a groan of pain.

Along with the pain, guilt plagued her for not being with Bella and myself, having always been very close to the both of us. She wasn't even able to try to stop Bella wearing Emmett's jumpers, provided by Rosalie, when she outgrew her own clothes, despite the myriad bags of maternity wear that Alice had picked up.

Always excepting myself, Alice was the most distressed over the situation. I heard her musing that almost everything she had was being stripped away from her: obviously her sight, but also her relationship with Bella, with me, with Rosalie, her entire family, her freedom to leave the house and do as she would, her certainty that nothing could surpass the love one felt for one's mate; she had already lost her past and now she was losing her future. Immediately upon completing her melancholy litany, she chastised herself for being selfish, and had there been any of my heart left to break, it would have broken for my sister. As it was, I couldn't bring myself to care.

With every passing hour it became clearer that my plans would not work. Bella would not get rid of the foetus. It was so evident in her every move that she loved it. Too late… too late…

I was descending again into the darkness. My plans for Jacob had lifted me somewhat, but I couldn't sustain the effort required to keep me afloat, not when I knew it was helpless, hopeless. The abyss of hopelessness was claiming me inch by inch, but the darkness was not black, somehow. It was full of reds and oranges, the colours of blood and fire, burning my eyes, my body, my heart. The flames licked about me maliciously, consuming me vindictively, and I could do nothing but scream. Scream silently in what I knew was Hell, waiting for Bella to die. My perfect façade was slowly eroded by the silent screams, the excruciating agony that accompanied every thought, every word, every sensation, every atom of my being and of the universe. When I went to Volterra, I knew that Bella was already dead. I was executed without preliminaries. Now, I had to face the torture.

Words, images, pain… they flew in my madness. Words could not describe this, images could not depict it, pain was the only truth. I wanted to rip at my flesh, my disgusting rock hard flesh, to claw at my face and tear it from my head, to reach between my ribs and crush my silent heart. Anything to miss these moments of malevolent mourning.

Then I heard him.

_Ugh. Reeking vampires._

"Jacob's here," I said out loud. It was the first time I had spoken in a day.

Bella's eyes widened in surprise, shock, anticipation. Not love. No, Bella, love him, love him… Please. Please.

"I'll answer the door," Carlisle said, covering his surprise at my words.

"What if he attacks?" hissed Rosalie.

"He wouldn't," Bella said.

"He probably thinks you're one of us!"

I stopped listening, stopped caring, my sanity used up. The fires were waiting. Jacob was too late. Too late…

_I always knew he would kill her._

It was only then that I realised I hadn't even known what was going on. I disgusted myself. So little time left, and I was indulging myself in the darkness. I was missing Bella's final days, hours, minutes. For an instant, that felt like the greatest crime. Missing moments.

Then my head snapped up to meet Jacob's gaze. Werewolf and vampire, fighting for a human. For Bella.

Time restarted.

* * *

A/N: And now the missing moments are found. Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed this fic. I really appreciate it, but you knew that already. This story was started in a scrappy notebook back in August, back when it was two fics: "The Phone Call" and "Reunion", which became chapters one to four. Thirteen chapters, three notebooks and forty thousand words later, it ends.

Thank you.


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